


Laundry

by LibbyLune



Category: One Piece
Genre: Canon Compliant, Crossdressing, First Kiss, First Time, Getting Together, Hand Jobs, Idiots in Love, Lingerie, M/M, Zoro doesn't know shit about clothes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-12
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:42:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 24,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21772408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LibbyLune/pseuds/LibbyLune
Summary: Dealing with Sanji makes Zoro develop a lot of opinions about clothes.   It only gets worse when the cook comes back from Momoiro Island.
Relationships: Roronoa Zoro/Vinsmoke Sanji
Comments: 94
Kudos: 906





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> the premise of this fic is “what if Sanji learned even one tiny thing about tolerance on Momoiro Island, I refuse to believe he cross-dressed for two entire years and hated every second of it” so yes it’s an excuse to put my fave in sexy underwear, but I’m trying to be delicate about it

Laundry has always been one of Sanji’s jobs, back from the very beginning. It’s just one of the many domestic tasks the idiot decided Nami couldn’t possibly be bothered with. Not that he ever offered to do Luffy, Zoro, or Usopp’s clothes too, but there was no avoiding the inevitable.

Luffy is Luffy. Early on, Sanji caught him rinsing his shorts in seawater, preparing to leave them in a puddle on the floor, wander around the ship in his underwear, and call that good enough. The cook threw a hissy fit and tried to teach their captain how to  _ wash your clothes properly, you shitty kid _ , but to no one’s surprise, the lesson didn’t stick. Absorbing Luffy’s laundry into his responsibilities, Sanji occasionally still gripes when their captain is especially careless about getting filthy, but otherwise never complained about the addition. 

Luffy is Luffy, and Sanji is Sanji, and the cook loves taking care of their captain, despite all his grousing. Zoro can appreciate that, so he never taunts the cook about being Luffy’s personal maid. Well, not too often.

For a while, Usopp actually did wash his own clothes. He’s perhaps the most self-sufficient of them all, and less likely to impose on others, besides. But sometimes Zoro would catch him sneaking things into Sanji’s laundry basket, and the cook never did much more than sigh and shoot him a dirty look when he found them mid-wash. Personally, Zoro thinks that’s unfair, because the one time he tried it Sanji knocked him overboard with his own shirt tied around his head.

Whatever the reason, Sanji is soft on Usopp in this regard, and after a few rounds of watching the coward guiltily sneak his freshly washed clothes off the line, Sanji let him off the hook. Usopp helps with the dishes more often than the others, and Sanji washes his clothes as long as they’re not too coated in grease. If they are, Usopp has to wash the kitchen floor.

Zoro gets no such grace, and doesn’t want it. What’s the point of washing clothes when they’ll just get salty again from merely being on the ship? Not to mention being launched overboard, or soaked in blood, or coated in dirt and grime from their shore adventures. Unfortunately this is not acceptable to the cook, who rails at Zoro until he makes a haphazard pass at washing. The cook is never impressed.

“You call this clean, marimo? There’s still blood on it!”

“How can this possibly be clean when the wash-water is  _ that color _ ?”

“I don’t know why you bother trying, we should just burn all your clothes!”

Needless to say, it’s a good source of fights, but no amount of fighting solves the problem. Each time, Sanji bitches and whines and takes Zoro’s laundry away, adding it to his own workload. He complains about it again, every time he hands Zoro a stack of clean and neatly folded clothes, but as weeks pass there’s less and less sincerity in it. Zoro can tell that the cook takes satisfaction in doing this, not nearly as much as he gets from cooking and feeding all of them, but still the same kind of joy over care given for his crew.

He’s not about to ask the cook about it and risk having the responsibility pushed back onto himself, so Zoro is quiet about putting his laundry where it belongs and doesn’t tease the cook about the domesticity. Not too often.

Chopper hardly adds anything to the work and Sanji doesn’t say much about it, just tells their little doctor where to put dirty things. Of course when they find Nico Robin on their ship Sanji won’t even tell her where the laundry soap is kept, only that he’ll take care of it, of course! By the time they get Franky on board it’s so normal that Zoro barely notices when Sanji absorbs the cyborg’s lame print shirts and creepy speedo collection into his chore pile. 

“Isn’t it kind of strange that Cook-bro does all that?” Franky asks, after a week or two. A beautiful day, and everyone is out on deck for one reason or another. Zoro is training, himself, but Usopp and Chopper are just hanging out playing a game. Sanji is on the upper deck, doing the laundry.

“No one else is gonna do it,” Zoro dismisses.

“But isn’t it rough on his hands? Cook-bro always acts SUPER concerned about that,” Franky observes. “Laundry soap can be caustic stuff, YOW!”

Zoro shrugs. He doesn’t know anything about soap, and the cook is pretty neurotic about it his hands. If there was a problem, he’d do something about it.

“I’ll make a SUPER laundry washing machine,” Franky declares, hurrying off to his workshop. 

Franky does make a laundry washer. Sanji doesn’t like it, and refuses to use it after one of his suits comes out multicolored. No one is particularly surprised.

Zoro is used to taking a nap while the cook hangs clothes out on deck and waking to see him taking everything down to fold. It was a normal sight on the Merry, and it looks like it’ll be normal on the Sunny too. Nothing weird about it.

In fact, it only gets weird when they meet Brook. Everything about meeting Brook is weird, and even once they’re sailing away from Thriller Bark the fun doesn’t stop.

The cook must have just done the laundry. Zoro didn’t notice - he’s too busy trying to hide from Chopper, lifting weights in the shade under the witch’s orange trees. When he comes around the corner, only bleeding through a few of his bandages and needing a drink, everyone’s clothes are fluttering in the wind and Brook is gaping up at the drying line.

Zoro looks up at the line - shirts, pants, whatever - and down at the skeleton. Line, skeleton, line, nothing to see here. He’s about to ask Brook what the fuck, but at the same moment Nami looks up from her magazine, eyes narrowed in a way that makes him step back into the shelter of the trees.

“Oho, Nami-san, are those your pa-”

“BROOK.”

The skeleton may not have been with them for long, but that tone is a clear threat. Brook shuts his jaw with a clatter, his empty eye sockets still trained up at the fluttering clothes.

“Brook, what do you think you’re staring at?” Nami continues, voice shifting from murderous menace to silky sweet. 

“Nothing at all, nothing at all, my dear!” Brook says, after a moment of nervous fidgeting. He turns in a hurry and leaves, with one last glance over his shoulder.

“That’s what I thought,” Nami mutters, glaring after him.

Weird. Zoro comes back around the corner, watching their new musician slink away. What’s the big deal? It’s just one of the cook’s fussy suits, a few of Usopp’s socks, Luffy’s second-favorite vest, and some of the girls’ underwear.

Underwear. Panties. That stupid skeleton, why would he be so obvious about it in the middle of the day when Nami is right there? Not that her rage has discouraged him yet, but come on.

Well, they all have their eccentricities. Even if Brook gets his skull caved in for being creepy about the girls’ laundry, it’s not Zoro’s problem. Dismissing the issue, Zoro heads to the galley for that drink. 

As it turns out, that’s where Brook ended up too. From the sound of it the cook is in there with him; Zoro groans and stops next to the door. Interacting with Sanji these last few days has sucked.

“You do all the laundry, Sanji-san?”

“Yeah.” A pause, then a clatter of dishes. Zoro can just picture the cook taking a drag from his cigarette and giving Brook one of his annoying  _ looks _ before turning back to the sink. “What of it? I might as well do yours too, have Franky or someone show you where to put stuff.”

“Oho, thank you for the generous offer, Sanji-san! Please don’t think I was asking you to take on more work for my sake!”

“I already handle it for the rest of these ungrateful shitheads,” the cook grumbles, in tones that Zoro knows to mean  _ don’t worry about it, I want to take care of you _ .

“For the ladies as well, I understand?”

“Yes,” the cook responds, suspicion creeping into his voice. Zoro is glad he waited outside.

“Ohoho! A thankless task perhaps, but a reward in itself for the chance to examine Nami-san and Robin-san’s lovely panties!”

Zoro can feel the blood leaving his face. Okay, maybe it’s because too much is leaking out of his strained stitches, but Brook is really putting his life in danger today.

“WHAT!” the cook explodes, rattling the glass in the galley windows. “Shitty skeleton, what are you - I’m not - it’s just  _ laundry! _ ”

A drink can wait. Zoro heads elsewhere to take a nap, just as Brook flies out the galley door. The sound of polished shoes on bone is becoming familiar.

~o~O~o~

Still, now that Brook has brought it up, Zoro realizes it’s weird that the ero-cook has never said anything gross about washing the girls’ underwear. He would lose his mind if he saw either Nami or Robin actually wearing it. Is there really nothing interesting about the clothes themselves?

For whatever reason, the question won’t leave his mind. Zoro watches the cook prance around the girls as usual, praising their perfect beauty and flawless sense of fashion, and can only think of that overheard conversation. It gets distracting enough that the next time Sanji is out on deck hanging things to dry, Zoro wanders over to ask him about it.

There’s a distantly content look on the cook’s face, the expression he makes when he’s doing any of his chores besides cooking. The cook usually wears a full smile when he’s doing that alone, but he seems to enjoy the more mundane stuff like this, too. Zoro can only hope that he’ll be dedicated enough to finishing this job that they can talk for a bit, before Sanji tries to take Zoro’s head off. That’s how all of their conversations end.

“You really don’t care?” Zoro asks, gesturing at a few pairs of panties and some other frilly stuff he doesn’t know the fancy names for pinned neatly in the breeze.

“If it’s coming from you? No,” Sanji says, without looking to see what he’s asking about. A pair of Usopp’s boxers joins the line, and the cook bends down to shake the wrinkles out of one of Franky’s shirts.

“About the panties,” Zoro says, feeling stupid saying the word. They hear it from Brook all the time, and that’s more than enough.

Sanji peers around the shirt with a disgruntled frown. “What are you going on about?”

“You won’t shut up about whatever the girls are wearing,” Zoro tries to elaborate. “Does seeing their underwear all the time really not do anything for you? Brook seemed pretty excited about it.”

The next piece of laundry gets shaken out with a harsh snap, and the cook is shifting his jaw like he needs a cigarette. “Please tell me you’re not listening to the shitty skeleton’s opinions on panties,” he demands. 

“No way,” Zoro retorts, nose scrunching up at the idea. “Who cares about that stuff. I just thought it was weird that you don’t care, after Brook mentioned it.”

“You think it’s weird that I’m not behaving like a complete degenerate over my precious angels’ laundry,” Sanji deadpans. He’s stopped hanging the wash, and that look on his face is as good as a countdown.

Zoro reaches for his swords. “I mean, you’re the dumbass who tries to get with every girl we meet. Seems like touching their underwear ought to get you going.”

“It’s just clothes unless someone is wearing it, moss for brains!” the cook screeches. “Of course Nami-swan and Robin-chan look impossibly stunning in anything and it’s an unparalleled joy to see their outfit choices, but this?” he waves at the drying line, hand smacking against a pair of Luffy’s wet shorts. “No, shithead, I’m not getting off on washing their clothes; it’s just  _ fabric _ .”

“That actually makes sense,” Zoro says, with an almost eye-opening sense of wonder. Sanji shoves his laundry basket out of the way and aims a kick straight for his face.

Usually Zoro can’t get in the cook’s head at all, so actually understanding his position on anything beyond their resolve to protect their nakama is so distracting that Zoro gets tossed overboard by one of Sanji’s kicks. By the time he climbs back onto the ship the cook is watching from the upper deck with a smug smirk, the last of the wash in his hands.

So that’s just how it is. The cook does all of their laundry, and Zoro doesn’t put any more thought into it. Their crazy life continues as usual, until it doesn’t, and they’re suddenly separated for those two confounding years.

~o~O~o~

When they all find each other again, Zoro wants to say the cook is the same as ever. Sanji’s attitude sure is - they easily fall back into their rivalry, and it’s a relief Zoro didn’t know he needed. In fact, meeting everyone again feels like they were never apart at all, except for the profound ease lightening his chest. It’s only appearances that have changed, and Zoro doesn’t exactly have time to process any of that, as they hightail it out of Sabaody.

Luffy’s scar, Nami’s hair, Usopp’s fucking  _ muscles _ . Franky’s ridiculous upgrades. Zoro knows he’s bulked up too, not to mention the missing eye, but for some reason it’s the way Sanji suddenly fills out his suits that grabs his attention. If anything the cook is the least changed of them all, but Zoro can’t take his eyes off the man.

That’s the thing, Zoro decides. The cook isn’t a lanky kid in a suit anymore, he’s an adult. An adult in a jacket that flawlessly captures the way his shoulders taper to his narrow waist, and pants that explicitly showcase the power in his legs. He’s got a great ass now too, Zoro notices, before shaking the thought out of his head. That’s going a little too far.

The cook has always been appealing, in a scrawny kind of way. Now he’s attractive enough that Zoro has trouble dragging his one remaining eye away. Which he really has to do, because Zoro doubts that those two years apart affected the cook’s fundamental nature, and inaccessibility. But damn, whoever made him that suit did the guy a lot of favors.

“What do you think of the beard?” Robin idly asks, sneaking up behind Zoro while he trains out on deck. The deep sea outside their bubble is steadily darkening, and the cook is laid out cold on the deck, surrounded by blood bags.

Zoro nearly drops his weights on his foot and curses, scowling at her. Robin weaseled his preferences out of him within days of joining their crew, and caught on to his fancy for the cook shortly after. She rarely says anything, generally accepting his excuses - the cook is too annoying, the cook is straight, the cook is cute but not  _ that  _ cute - but she never lets him forget that she knows.

“The beard is stupid,” Zoro grumbles, instead of trying to ignore her. It’s true, anyway; the scruffy patch looks more like Sanji forgot to shave in a very particular pattern than anything else, and it doesn’t fit the rest of his sleek image.

“The rest makes up for it, I assume,” Robin says. Zoro scowls at her for a moment, and they both stand quietly, peering at the cook. She’s not wrong.

“What are you guys up to?” Usopp asks, wandering over with an uneasy glance at the water outside the ship. Zoro is a little surprised the coward isn’t keeping busy inside somewhere.

“Merely remarking on how everyone has matured,” Robin tells him, waving an elegant hand between themselves and Sanji.

“Oh yeah, Sanji got hot, huh?” Usopp comments, following their gaze.

Zoro startles, staring at their sniper. Even Robin blinks.

“What?” Usopp complains. “He did! I mean, plenty of people like the skinny blond look, but c’mon!”

“You grew up more than he did,” Zoro says, trying to move the subject away from the cook.

“Sure, but not in a hot way,” Usopp sighs, giving a forlorn flex. “Wish I knew what Sanji did those two years, ‘cause his ass looks great.”

Robin bursts out laughing, which is a much better reaction than Zoro, who would kind of like to throttle their sniper. “Surely you don’t have a crush on Cook-san, do you, Sniper-san?”

Usopp pales. “No. No! Definitely not, and oh my god, don’t tell him I said that! I just mean - I don’t know what I mean, why did I say anything? Forget it!”

“Try squats,” Zoro advises, giving Usopp a glare that chases the coward indoors. Robin pats his shoulder and walks away, still giggling to herself.

It’s fine. The cook is still really annoying and really unavailable, so who cares if he got fit in interesting ways while they were all separated. Everyone will get used to all the changes in the crew soon enough, and it won’t be worth mentioning.

That resolution is easily kept through their adventures on Fishman Island. There’s hardly a moment to catch their breath, let alone process any deeper thoughts, until they’re on their way out and everyone has time to catch up on their chores. Or rather, the cook has time to catch up on chores, while the rest of the crew relaxes.

Seeing the damn love-cook twirling around with snacks before going to hang the laundry gives Zoro a sense of contentment almost as refreshing as the sake he’s managed to swipe. He’s just got to finish it before Sanji comes down from the upper deck and catches Zoro with stolen booze, or that feeling of peace doesn’t have a chance.

One of the cook’s new suits is hanging nearest to the rail, right in Zoro’s line of sight. He takes another swig of sake, contemplating it. Looks like any other bit of fabric - the damn cook really knew what he was talking about, saying that clothes aren’t worth much without the person wearing them. Zoro has no interest in the black fabric swaying in the breeze, no matter how well it shows off Sanji’s body.

Glancing around, he spots Nami peering up at the clothesline, a suspicious look on her face. Zoro tucks his sake aside and follows her gaze. Everything looks normal to him, just the cook’s suit hanging next to some of the girls’ lacy underwear. Whatever she’s seeing makes the witch put her hands on her hips and purse her lips.

Nami leaves what she was doing and walks up the stairs, her appearance heralded by the love-cook’s endless stream of compliments. Zoro is glad he can’t see the matching performance from here, his view blocked by a rippling tablecloth.

“Sanji-kun,” the witch says.

“Yes, Nami-swan? Have you finished your snack? Could I get you-”

“Do you want to come shopping with Robin and I, next time there’s a good island?” Nami moves back into Zoro’s view, waving a hand at the line holding the cook’s suit and her underwear.

“It’s always a joy to accompany you, Nami-swan! I’ll carry whatever you buy, so you ladies can concentrate on-”

“I mean, do you want to go clothes shopping with us?” the witch interrupts. She reaches forward, impatiently tugging on something Zoro can’t see.

Silence. Zoro can hardly believe it, unable to picture the ero-cook standing with their beautiful navigator and not showering her with nonsense. He hears the click of Sanji’s lighter and the scuff of his shoes on the deck, as if the cook is shifting his feet.

“That would be nice,” Sanji says, his voice low. “Thank you for inviting me, Nami-swan.”

Zoro doesn’t know why that detail changed anything, why it made the cook quiet and sincere instead of his usual overbearing self, but Nami makes a satisfied noise.

“I’ve been wanting to talk to you about it,” she declares. 

“You can talk to me whenever you want, Nami-swan!” Sanji promises, not quite up to his normal energy level. “My time is yours!”

Nami comes back down the stairs, waving her acknowledgement of that truth without looking back at the cook. Zoro quickly closes his eye and pretends to be napping. There was nothing in that conversation to make it so strange, but he definitely missed something. No reason to make it obvious he overheard.

~o~O~o~

It’s the first chance they’ve had to do chores, and, Zoro realizes, the first night they’ve slept normally on the Sunny. The routine of getting ready for bed while listening to Usopp complain about his turn at watch is bizarrely ordinary. At least until Franky goes silent in the middle of explaining his newest upgrade idea to Zoro, jaw hanging open as he stares at the door. 

Zoro twists to look, and at the first glimpse of golden hair his instinctive reaction is to ask Franky what the big deal is, it’s just Sanji. But Brook, playing his violin on one of the couches with a clearer view of the door, misses a note, and the response falls from Zoro’s mind as the cook comes all the way into the room.

He’s obviously fresh from the bath, but that isn’t the problem. Zoro has seen the cook in every stage of bathing, and is reasonably inured to it. No, the issue is what Sanji is wearing, because it doesn’t fit into any of the categories Zoro is used to seeing on him.

It’s just pajamas, Zoro tries to tell himself. None of them really wear pajamas, so that’s all that’s weird about it. He can’t stop the heat rising to his face as the lie becomes too thin to hold.

The cook walks into the boys’ room wearing a nearly strapless slip of a shirt, and the tiniest pair of shorts Zoro has ever seen, in matching, pastel blue silk. Zoro can see the entire length of his legs, the full breadth of his shoulders, and even a glimpse of the pale skin at his waist as Sanji raises an arm to point between Franky and Brook.

“Got something to say?” the cook challenges.

Franky swallows with a creaking sound, and Brook’s jaw rattles. “No!” they exclaim in unison. Zoro shakes his head, even though the cook hasn’t paid any attention to him yet.

“Keep it that way,” Sanji says darkly. 

“Shishishi!” Luffy laughs, leaning off the side of his bed. Zoro turns to look at him, feeling like the world is moving in slow motion. “Sanji looks cute!”

Everything freezes as Sanji spins to glare at their captain, but then the cook relaxes with a sigh. “You are the only person I’ll take that from, you ignorant shithead.”

Zoro wonders if he heard right. Sanji two years ago would have gone into a rage over that word, no matter who said it. He’s still staring in wonder as the cook gives the whole room another deliberate glare.

“What, marimo,” Sanji growls.

“Looks comfy,” Zoro croaks. It’s the most neutral thing he can think of. This is not the time to poke fun at the ero-cook, and definitely not the time to blurt out how sexy he looks.

“It is,” Sanji agrees, still with that look that dares them all to say anything else.

“Did Ivan-chan give you those?” Luffy asks, like they’re not in mortal danger right now.

“Yes.” The cook pauses, tugging at the hem of the shorts for a moment. “Sometimes he has good taste.”

Zoro vaguely remembers that Ivan-chan is Ivankov of the Revolutionary Army, that Luffy met him in Impel Down and Sanji somehow ended up spending their two years apart with him. The cook has never said much about it, beyond that the island was hell. Now Zoro is torn between desperately wanting to know, and hoping to never hear the name again.

“Ivan-chan is so fun,” Luffy sighs. “I miss him.”

“You would think that,” Sanji mutters, crossing his arms over his chest. The silk makes a whispering sound, pulling up at the waist again. Zoro’s mouth feels dry. He watches the way the material clings to the cook’s chest, outlining his pecs, nipples clearly visible, and desperately tries not to look further down.

“I got to play with his friends, before we left Impel Down, did I tell you about them? They were so fun!”

“I can imagine,” Sanji says, with a vaguely horrified expression. “You probably would have liked his shitty island, too.”

“Tell me about it!” Luffy demands. Zoro glances around. Like himself, Franky and Brook are hanging on Sanji’s every word.

“Maybe later,” the cook dissembles, His eyes dart between what he’s wearing and his locker, before he remembers himself and glares at the rest of them again. “Go the fuck to sleep, assholes.”

Luffy complains about it, but Zoro is happy to see the end of that particular conversation. He tries not to stare as the cook climbs into his own bunk, but Zoro already knows he won’t be able to forget the way those silk shorts stretch over Sanji’s ass.

~o~O~o~

Brook starts staring at the cook after that, drifting around the ship following him when nothing else is going on. The deep darkness of the ocean around them is beginning to lighten by the time everyone wakes up, but there’s not much to do. It gives Zoro plenty of time to realize that their musician is stalking the cook, so Sanji definitely knows it too.

In fact, by lunch everyone but Luffy has noticed. The cook is on edge, so Usopp and Chopper are avoiding him. Franky also wisely finds projects to do elsewhere, and Nami looks grimly satisfied as she watches Brook orbit around Sanji. Zoro doesn’t like that look on the witch, but Robin just laughs at him when he tries to hint at what’s going on.

“Some people have to learn their lessons first-hand,” she says, raising her gaze from her book to watch Brook peering around the mast at Sanji as he returns to the kitchen with an empty tray. “It’s best to let these things play out.”

Zoro makes a noise he refuses to admit is desperate. The stupid cook is too central in his thoughts right now for him to be able to bear any more mysteries about the man.

“Surely you know Cook-san can win his own battles,” Robin adds, her eyes now trained on Zoro instead.

“What kind of battle,” Zoro demands, throwing a hand up. “I don’t even know why Brook is stalking him like that!”

“Perhaps he has learned a dreadful secret, and our cook is doomed to an early death,” Robin says dreamily. “Or he’s been possessed by a vengeful spirit, and is waiting for a chance to pounce.”

Zoro stomps away and ignores her playful smile. Robin loves messing with him, but he’s at least sort of confident that she would tell him if something dangerous was happening. It’s not like Brook’s weirdness is any of his business.

It’s not his business, but Zoro is  _ curious _ , damn it, and he usually respects his nakama’s privacy, so it’s okay this once, right? It’s not unusual for him to train near the galley, anyway, even if this time he’s standing close enough to see through the window and hear the cook chopping vegetables as Brook slides inside.

“What’s up?” the cook asks, barely glancing away from his work as the door closes behind their musician.

“Oho, nothing pressing, Sanji-san,” Brook says, making his way over to sit at the counter.

“If you don’t need anything, get out while I’m cooking,” Sanji grumbles, but there’s no pressure in his tone. It’s practically an invitation for company.

“I apologize for reacting so rudely to your choice in sleepwear,” Brook says, giving a half-bow from his stool.

Zoro growls to himself. He knew it was something about that!

“Not like you were the only one,” the cook retorts. “It’s fine. I spent two years- Well. I spent two years with people who liked that kind of stuff, so some habits stuck.”

“Indeed, and you should be able to wear what you choose without such gauche behavior from your nakama. Please accept my sincerest apologies. Being caught unawares is no excuse, though I would never have expected such sensibilities from you, Sanji-san.” 

“I said it’s fine,” Sanji mutters, turning to glance at the skeleton with reddened cheeks. Zoro sneaks a little closer to the window. “If you say anything else I’ll kick your ass.”

Brook hums in agreement, sitting quietly for a while. The cook gives him a cup of tea, and Brook looks up at him with a very familiar alertness.

“Sanji-san,” the skeleton says hopefully, “will you-”

“You really wanna ask that now?” Sanji cuts in, threat sharp as the knife in his hand.

“Ah,” Brook squeaks. “Will you be making tea again this afternoon?” 

It’s clearly not what he started to ask. Zoro doesn’t want to know what the original question was. Sanji clearly knows, and Zoro gets the feeling that if Brook had gotten it all the way out, the Sunny wouldn’t have survived.

“Don’t I always,” Sanji mutters. “Go somewhere else, shitty skeleton.”

“Thank you for the tea!” Brook calls over his shoulder, scurrying for the door.

Zoro wants to leave it be, really he does. But the curiosity is killing him, and what  _ is  _ it that makes their idiot musician keep risking his death over the cook?

“What are you doing?” Zoro hisses, pulling Brook against the side of the galley as he passes. “Can’t you wait to piss him off until we get to the surface so we won’t all drown?!”

“Oho, it isn’t like you to be so concerned, Zoro-san! But Sanji-san rarely gets so upset as that with anyone except you, I do declare.”

“Whatever. You’re asking for it, bugging him about the pajamas. Even I can tell that’s a thing.”

“Pajamas, yes, but,” Brook says with a wink, “any warm blooded man would wonder, ohoho, though I of course do not have blood!”

“I so do not want to know,” Zoro mutters. He does, but not from Brook.

“Besides, it would be terribly unfair of me not to include Cook-san! Positively rude. He has such good taste, and so obviously-”

So obviously  _ what _ , Zoro isn’t fated to find out. Luffy tumbles around the corner, Usopp shouting and laughing behind him, and finally Chopper hurtles after them and knocks Zoro clean off his feet. Sanji slams the galley door open to yell at them, Luffy gives up the game to beg for food, and Zoro gets the hell away from the whole mess.

~o~O~o~

G-5 throws them off course as soon as they reach the surface, those meddling fuckers, but it lands them at a surprisingly pleasant island. A marine-free port, sunny summer weather, and a bustling town with streets full of colorful shops.

“Perfect,” Nami purrs, looking over the map the harbor-master gave them. She lets Luffy drag Chopper away into the town, ordering Franky to keep an eye on them, and goes to talk quietly with Robin, their heads bent over the map.

Zoro casts an eye over the waterside, and decides to take a nap until the afternoon. Looks like the kind of place that won’t get interesting until the sun starts to go down.

“Sanji-kun,” the witch calls, pulling the cook out of the kitchen like she’s got him on a leash. “You’ll come shopping with us, won’t you?”

“Of course, Nami-swan! Anything you want-”

“Looks like there are a lot of fashionable shops here,” Nami continues, and Sanji trips over his words for a moment. “I have something for you before we leave, come with me for a second, okay?”

“Of - of course,” the cook stammers, tailing Nami into the girls’ room and coming back out with a shopping bag, one with that Crimin logo from Fishman Island on the front.

“Just get changed, and we’ll get ready to go,” Nami orders, ushering him out and waving Robin to her in the same motion. Sanji peers into the bag, glancing around the deck for a breath before vanishing into the boy’s cabin.

“What’s that all about?” Usopp asks, looking up from a list he’s working on.

Zoro shrugs. “Bet she got him a stupid uniform. Official Shopping Donkey, or something.”

“Isn’t that you, though?” Usopp says with a grin. Zoro growls at him, but it’s not worth going after the guy for something like that, at least not when Nami and the cook didn’t hear it.

Robin reappears before Sanji does, leaving Nami behind in their room with an anticipatory smile on her lips. Zoro doesn’t get much time to worry about that expression before the cook comes back on deck.

He can’t remember if he’s ever seen the cook in jeans. He’s definitely never seen Sanji in jeans like these, fitted close over his hips and thighs, and highlighting the slim lines of his calves. He would remember that. They’re nothing fancy, exactly, but even Zoro can tell the style is fashionable. And they look fantastic on the stupid love-cook.

“Cigarette leg,” Robin says, coming up beside him as he stares after the cook. Zoro jumps.

“What?” 

“The cut,” she says, with one of those knowing smiles. “Perfect for him, wouldn’t you agree? Nami couldn’t pass them up.”

Zoro looks back at Sanji. The rest of the outfit is equally simple, a t-shirt with the Crimin logo in a rainbow of colors, patterned socks visible where the jeans cuff just above his ankles, a pair of his normal polished shoes. But the shirt is thin, looks soft even from across the deck, and has a wide v-neck that shows off the cook’s throat and collarbones, fitted just as closely as the jeans. Even the socks are weirdly tantalizing, though maybe that’s how slender Sanji’s ankles look out of his usual black pants.

“It’s just jeans and a t-shirt,” Zoro says, voice giving him away with surprising dryness in his throat. He doesn’t look at Robin. She’s watching him staring at the cook, he already knows that, and he doesn’t need the confirmation to imagine the discerning expression on her face.

He looks away instead, abruptly realizing that Nami should be coming out soon and he’ll have much more than gentle teasing to deal with if the witch catches him ogling the cook, but she isn’t on deck. Usopp still is though, and he is also staring at Sanji.

“Looking good!” the sharpshooter blurts out, going pale when the cook turns his direction. Zoro winces. “I mean-”

“Thanks,” Sanji interrupts, with almost no rage or impatience. Zoro and Usopp’s jaws drop open simultaneously.

“Any time,” Usopp says, because whenever his mouth is open words are falling out, unavoidable as tides. “Changing up your look? I mean, the suits are cool, but-”

“Watch it,” Sanji warns. His expression darkens, one foot lifting to tap against the deck. Usopp’s jaw closes with a snap.

“I gotta go,” he announces after a moment of wide-eyes panic, waving his list in the air. “Terrible case of I-shouldn’t-talk-about-fashion disease. See ya, Sanji! Bye guys!”

Zoro manages to close his own mouth as Usopp runs off. It’s bewildering - the damn cook never takes compliments from guys, not on something as personal as his  _ appearance _ . Hearing him accept one from Usopp - even in tones that dared the coward to keep talking - is even weirder than when he let Luffy say he looked cute. Still lurking beside him, Robin snickers.

“He always looks terrible in casual clothes,” Zoro tells her. The words come out accusing. 

It’s only the truth. Stupid love-cook wears those damn suits 90% of the time, and the remainder of his wardrobe is worse than Franky’s. All garish pink shirts, ugly shorts, patterns that clash and blinding color combinations. At least Zoro knows his own fashion sense is bad; the cook hasn’t seemed to realize. Now suddenly there’s this.

“His taste seems to have changed over the past two years,” Robin says.

“Nami bought him that outfit,” Zoro points out. Another reality-challenging event, that their navigator would spend money on any of them. Maybe she stole it.

“Hmm, yes.” Robin leans over the rail, fingers laced beneath her chin. “That’s hardly what I meant.”

“What the fuck,” Zoro mutters.

There’s no time for Robin to elaborate, not that she would have anyway. Nami swans out of their room, spurring the cook into a whirlwind of compliments, and the three of them leave together.

“Brook, Zoro, I don’t care who, but one of you has to stay and watch the ship!” Nami yells over her shoulder, before linking her arm through the cook’s and dragging him off. Robin follows in their wake, unflappable.

“Ohoho, Zoro-san, you looked quite stricken by Sanji-san today, do you perhaps-”

“Don’t say it,” Zoro growls. At least Brook probably won’t gossip about it. “Get out of here, I’ll watch the ship.”

“Are you certain? If you leave now, perhaps you could catch up to our nakama and accompany them as they shop? Sanji-san always asks to watch the ladies try on new clothes, so you might enjoy-”

“NO.”

Brook only laughs, and says that he would rather stay and practice his violin for the afternoon. He’s good company when he isn’t being all perceptive and prying, so Zoro makes a compromise and brings his weights down to the deck, putting himself out of sight and the reach of nosey questions as Brook plays in the shade, but within earshot of the skeleton’s casual melodies.

He still thinks about Sanji for most of the afternoon, unable to reach a truly meditative point in his reps. The cook’s newfound confidence - that’s what it is, that new willingness to accept the crews’ comments about his appearance - is startling, and attractive. Between that and the new clothes, Zoro is so fucked. He’s got to pull it together before the whole crew catches on.

These thoughts spin through his head until his nakama start trickling back. He can’t help looking up in interest when Nami’s exultant voice floats over the rails, quickly followed by the three of them coming up on deck in a flurry of brightly colored shopping bags.

“I knew it,” Nami says, clearly finishing an argument. “You’ll love them, Sanji-kun.”

“Quite lovely,” Robin murmurs, both of their eyes trained on the cook as he juggles their bags back and forth.

“I’m indebted to your wonderful taste, my angels!” the love-cook says, making his usual stupid expression with an unusual blush splashed across his cheeks.

Amongst the bouquet of shopping bags, there are three that are identical. Glossy, pink-striped ones with ribbon handles; Zoro doesn’t give a shit about brands, but he recognizes these. Nami is always excited to find one of these shops, and Brook always gets tossed overboard when he tries to see what she bought. Narrowing his eye at the cook’s back as Nami leads him away to drop off their purchases, Zoro once again fails to notice Robin sneaking up behind him.

“An invaluable bonding experience,” she says, smiling through Zoro’s startled jump. “Fascinating, to hear how our dear cook’s horizons were widened whilst we were separated.”

“Doubt he’d want you to share that with me,” Zoro grumbles, still distracted by the pink shopping bags. One for each of them? But why would the cook-

“No, I assume not,” Robin muses, following his gaze as Sanji and Nami vanish into the girls’ cabin. “Surely you can draw some conclusions yourself?”

“You went shopping together,” Zoro states. Robin nods. Sanji comes back out on deck with far fewer shopping bags, including one of the pink ones, and beelines for the galley. “For clothes.”

“For all her claims of financial responsibility, Nami does love having other people approve her outfits choices,” Robin confirms. “And she enjoys choosing for others.”

“You guys picked out stuff for the cook?” They pause, watching Sanji twirl across the grass with a fresh tray of drinks in one hand, bags still hanging from the other. “That’s all his?”

“From some very popular shops.” Robin’s gaze is patient, and merciless.

Zoro grits his teeth. “The pink one…”

“Lingerie,” Robin says, in a glaringly ordinary tone. Zoro splutters. “Cook-san was shy about it at first, but it was a very enjoyable stop.”

He can feel heat rising to his face, even as he casts around to make sure Brook hasn’t somehow divined the topic of conversation and appeared to make things even more awkward. “Why would the cook- That’s the kind of thing you shouldn’t tell me, woman!”

“Are you yelling at Robin-chwan, marimo?” Sanji demands, bowing to offer Robin the last drink on his tray with the same breath. “I’ll kick your ass.”

He’s still wearing the stylish outfit Nami gave him, afternoon sunlight glancing through the cook’s hair and off the exposed angles of his collarbones. Zoro drags his eye away. The pink bag swings from Sanji’s elbow, pastel tissue paper hiding whatever the damn witch told him to buy. Red in the face, Zoro can hardly catch his breath, let alone spit out a retort.

“I’m going to change and put this away,” Sanji tells Robin, after a suspicious glare at Zoro, “but I’ll be right back if you need anything, my dear!”

“He does have a lovely décolletage,” Robin observes, eyeing Zoro as he watches the cook disappear again. “Such nice skin.”

“Why are you torturing me,” Zoro groans.

Robin just leans back on the rail, turning her face up to the setting sun. “I think you would enjoy seeing what we bought today. If you try talking to him instead of wallowing in repressed desire, perhaps he would let you.”

“Or maybe he’ll skin me alive and feed me to Luffy,” Zoro says.

“It’s possible,” Robin allows, looking pleased by his adoption of her particular brand of macabre speculation. “Do try to imagine the benefits, though.”

“I have to be somewhere else,” Zoro announces, striding away before Robin’s crazy hypotheticals can take over his brain. His own imagination is already more than he can deal with.

He didn’t mean to follow the cook, but somewhere between getting out of Robin’s sight and trying to escape his own thoughts, he stumbles into the guys’ bunk. Which is where Sanji is, in the middle of stripping out of those miserably distracting jeans.

Zoro trips over his own feet, slams his shoulder against the doorframe, and can’t gather the good sense to turn tail while he still can, because as the cook steps out of those damn pants it becomes very clear that Robin wasn’t fucking with him. Instead of the unremarkable boxers Zoro is used to accidentally seeing on the cook, Sanji is wearing panties, cream and blue striped with matching lace trim at the hips and waist.

It’s not like he didn’t know, between Brook’s tactless stalking and all that business about shopping with the girls. Robin even told him, beyond a doubt. But that’s not the same as seeing, and Zoro is having trouble believing the sight in front of him.

Sanji turns to see who’s making a commotion in the doorway and grumbles, but goes to finish folding his jeans before acknowledging Zoro. “What’s wrong with you, marimo? You better not have broken into the booze while I was out with the ladies.”

There’s a tiny little bow right at the front of his panties, silk ribbon over the lace and cotton. Zoro considers slamming his head into the doorframe. Maybe he could knock himself out and avoid the rest of what promises to turn into a bloody fight.

“I’m not drunk,” he snaps instead. Sanji doesn’t look any more impressed. Of course he doesn’t; Zoro is flat-out staring at his underwear.

“I can’t believe I have to say this,” the cook mutters, before raising his voice. “Eyes up here, shit-swordsman.”

Zoro drags his gaze up as the cook puts his hands on his hips, which just draws Zoro’s attention to his damn collarbones again. Watching as the cook rolls his shoulders, Zoro can practically feel Sanji’s irritation building. When he finally looks up to Sanji’s face, he’s glaring at Zoro, but with more impatience than outrage.

“Aren’t you mad?”

Sanji sighs testily, still standing there is nothing but his t-shirt and panties. “We all sleep in the same room. Everyone is gonna see eventually. Whether or not I get mad is all on you right now, marimo. Got something to say?”

Zoro swallows. It’s hard to look at the cook, and harder to look away, but the most difficult thing is trying to keep his eye on Sanji’s face, instead of below his waist. Or at his waist, where a slip of pale skin and the tops of sharp hip bones show between the hem of his shirt and that cute little bow.

“Surprised me, is all,” he says. It’s just like last night, the cook giving them all a chance to blurt out something stupid and clear the air, but Zoro doesn’t know where to start.

“Right.” Sanji shifts his weight, eyes narrowed. 

“Right,” Zoro nods. Maybe they don’t have to talk about it-

Before Zoro can figure out what’s happening, the cook knocks him onto the couch and pounces on him, settling right over Zoro’s hips with a harsh grip on his shoulders.

“As if! Did you think I haven’t noticed you panting after me?” Sanji demands.

“I didn’t-” Didn’t mean it? A lie. Wasn’t looking? Worse. Wouldn’t have done anything? True, but not likely to help this situation, whatever it is. Zoro draws a deep breath through his nose and concentrates on not moving his hands, where they’re brushing the cook’s bare legs.

“You’re far from subtle,” the cook mutters, shifting on top of him. “Let’s just get this over with, shall we?”

Zoro makes a noise between questioning and panicked. This doesn’t feel like any fight they’ve had before, but the cook’s face sure does look like one, stormy eyes over a sharp frown.

“It’s a pretty normal thing to have a fetish about,” Sanji continues, glaring down at him, “but I’m not like the freaks on that fucked-up island, marimo. I’m not looking for my inner maiden or any of that bullshit, so don’t think I’m going to blush and swoon just because I like wearing pretty underwear. I’m not wearing it for you.”

“Duh,” Zoro blurts out, knocked for a moment out of the unreality of the situation. As if the cook would ever. The red flush on his cheeks is irritation; Zoro is plenty familiar with that look. And it’ll be a dry day on Fishman Island before Sanji dresses special for  _ Zoro _ .

“Alright,” the cook says. “Then like I said, let’s get over this. It’s about the tease, right? We’ll do this once, and you’ll get it out of your system. Once it’s all ordinary it won’t matter what I’m wearing.”

With that, the idiot cook leans back a little, rolling his hips, and without the pressure of Sanji’s grip on his shoulders Zoro all but throws them both onto the floor.

“What are you doing!” he yelps, hands flying to the cook’s flexing thighs. Sanji grabs one of them as Zoro jerks away again.

“Go ahead,” the cook says, gaze heated as he moves Zoro’s hand to the lace over his hip. The texture is strange under his fingertips, hints of Sanji’s skin scattered by the floral patterns. “It’s just underwear. Once you figure that out we can go back to normal, where you don’t stare at me like a moron all the time.”

If the cook is trying to tell him there’s nothing sexual about his new taste for panties, the idiot is going about it the wrong way. Zoro is getting hard in his pants, and there’s a noticeable bulge forming within easy reach of his hand. Besides, the stupid love-cook has it all wrong; Zoro doesn’t care about the underwear, it’s Sanji he’s interested in.

Okay, maybe he does care about the panties. But it’s because it’s Sanji wearing them, not the dumb general perversion Brook maintains. It’s Sanji’s strong hips under his hand, not the lace, that’s really getting to him.

“I wasn’t staring because I wanted to see your underwear!” Zoro exclaims, instead of anything that might have improved the situation. Now he’s only admitted to staring at the cook, and tossed out the easy excuse.

The cook’s blue eyes widen in surprise, mouth falling open for a moment before he speaks. “What?”

“You got hot, okay?” Zoro says, propping himself up enough to push Sanji back. The movement runs counter to everything his body wants, especially as his face comes close to the cook’s before the idiot leans away, but Zoro musters the strength of will to get Sanji off his lap instead of kissing him. “I mean, whatever stupid thing you’re trying to do here is hot too, but it’s not gonna get anything out of my system.”

“Oh,” the cook says, in an eerily calm voice, still sitting on Zoro’s thighs with his silky-soft t-shirt riding up his abs. Zoro gathers his remaining willpower and doesn’t check out the ero-cook’s burgeoning hard-on.

“Yeah,” Zoro confirms.

Sanji scrambles off the couch, all but hiding behind the open door of his locker. “This never happened!” he hisses. “What the fuck, marimo, you should have said that to begin with!”

Not validating that with a response, Zoro snarls at the idiot and books it up to the crow’s nest. They can fight about it later, once they’re not both half-hard and the cook has some damn pants on.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hmm yes I psyched myself out with that "oh I'll be done in a month" comment, so now this will be 3(?) chapters and finished... when I feel like it, aha ^^;

Whether it’s a miracle or a disaster, Zoro isn’t sure, but the ero-cook is distracted from Zoro finding out about his panties - and Zoro’s subsequent admission of attraction - by the entire rest of the crew finding out later that night.

It’s the idiot’s own fault somehow, Zoro is sure. Luffy being chased out of town after falling into some sulfurous mud hole up in the hills and then breaking the lock on the bathhouse door to get rid of the smell while the cook was taking a shower after dinner cleanup is no more unexpected than anything else that’s happened to them. It’s Sanji’s own fault for thinking he could get any privacy in the first place.

“Sanjiiii-”

“What the fuck, Luffy, you  _ stink _ -”

“-they were so mean to me, it’s not my fault-”

“Stop, STOP! Don’t jump in right away, you have to rinse off-”

“-and they wouldn’t even let me buy meat, I’m so hungry-”

“LISTEN to me, you-!”

“Oh hey Sanji, are those yours? Why are you wearing panties? Did you borrow them from Nami?”

It’s a gorgeous evening. The entire crew is out on deck, and the sudden silence from the bathhouse crackles across the ship. It’s like the ocean pulling back before a monstrous wave, and Zoro can see Usopp wince preemptively in the stillness.

“Of course they’re not Nami’s, you shithead, I would never touch her-”

“I guess hers wouldn’t fit right, since she doesn’t have-”

The cook screams, almost drowning out the sound of his foot impacting rubber, and Luffy flies out through the already broken door. Their captain’s trajectory is halted by the mast and he bounces to the deck, covered in yellow muck and holding a pair of rose pink panties, complete with matching ribbon. Sanji stands in the doorway in nothing but a towel, panting with fury.

No one says anything. Luffy holds the panties up to his face, looking between them and the seething cook.

“I don’t wear pink,” Nami eventually mutters.

“It clashes with your hair,” Robin agrees.

“Probably looks SUPER with your skin, Twirly-bro!” Franky says, sunglasses sliding down his nose as he scans the deck, finally giving Sanji a thumbs-up.

The cook’s skin is currently blotchy red and purpling with rage. Zoro doesn’t know if those are colors that go well with pink.

Sanji jumps down to the deck, striding over to Luffy, and Zoro sets his weights down in preparation for a swim. The cook only snatches his underwear out of Luffy’s hands, grabbing their captain by the collar and hurling him up toward the bathhouse. 

“Shower first!” he yells.

Silence again, only Luffy’s faint laughter and the sound of the shower starting. The cook scowls around and all the guys try to look busy, until Sanji stalks away and vanishes into their bunk.

Usopp takes a comically deep breath, eyes wide as saucers. Nami just sighs, and Robin goes back to reading with a faint smile. Chopper looks around like he doesn’t understand what the problem is, and Zoro figures that’s that, especially once the cook comes back out in his normal suit and doesn’t say anything, beyond complaining under his breath about hungry rubber imbeciles with no sense of propriety.

Sanji ends up making an evening snack that’s nearly a full meal, so Luffy declares it a party and herds everyone together on the lawn. It’s all very normal, and Zoro puts all the crazy shit that’s happened today out of his mind as they all drink and eat and watch the lights come on in the town across the water. Maybe he stares at the cook a little more than usual, and maybe Robin catches him at it, but how could he not.

The damn cook catches him too, once or twice, but it just makes them scowl and turn away from one another, in ways that probably look like their normal behavior to everyone else. Maybe that’s all it will ever be; they’ll just glare at each other until the sharp edges of embarrassment dull, and their lives can go on. There’s some truth to what the cook said earlier, about getting used to things. The crew is already getting used to Sanji’s new wardrobe, so the cook can get used to the idea of Zoro being attracted to him, and Zoro can get used to… knowing that Sanji was willing to get into his pants to get out of his head.

Nope, he’s not going to get used to that. Every time he looks at the love-cook he can only picture the man pressed into his lap, his flushed skin and sultry expression. It’s a lot harder to deal with than the new pajamas and underwear.

By the time Luffy is sated, the moon is rising bright over the island and the usual suspects are having an impromptu jam session, writing another triumphant ditty about the heroic adventures of Sogeking. The cook clears away one last pile of empty plates and joins everyone on the grass, lighting a cigarette and lounging against the rail.

Zoro takes a deep drink. He’s lucky Nami wanted booze - as long as he sits with her and Robin, the cook will keep refilling their glasses, and Zoro will have something to distract himself with. Even slouched against the rail, laughing at Usopp’s lyrics and Franky’s dancing, Sanji is handsome enough that Zoro can’t look away for long, all long lines and sharp angles.

He’s not the only one looking, again; most of the guys are busy, and even though Luffy is lying in a food coma nearby he’s still watching the band instead of the cook for once, but Nami is frowning in Sanji’s direction and Robin’s attention is divided between the love-cook and Zoro himself. 

“Sanji-kun wasn’t that hot before,” Nami mutters.

“Perhaps it’s his matured confidence,” Robin muses.

“Hot?” Luffy asks blankly. “Because he wears suits all the time? That would be hot, Sanji should wear shorts more often!”

“No, idiot,” Nami sighs. “Hot like Boa.”

Luffy grumbles at that. “Sanji is cuter than Boa, I love Sanji more.”

“Better not tell either of them that,” Zoro says. If there’s one fight the ero-cook would definitely lose, it’s against Boa Hancock.

“But it’s true,” Luffy whines. “Right, Zoro? Sanji is way better!”

“Right,” Zoro answers. He’s just agreeing with his captain, that’s all! Just telling Luffy what he wants to hear so he’ll shut up, but the response comes too easily and sounds too true. Nami turns to look at him, eyes alight with the same avaricious glee as when she spots a sucker to cheat out of his money.

“You think Sanji-kun is more attractive than Boa Hancock?” Nami asks, in an innocent tone that must be the fakest thing Zoro has ever heard. “More attractive than the most beautiful woman in the entire world?”

“Not like I’ve met her,” Zoro mutters. Nami smirks at him.

“Well duh,” Luffy yawns. “Zoro doesn’t like girls.”

“That doesn’t mean I like the damn love-cook!” Zoro hisses, remembering at the last second that said cook is barely out of earshot, so he shouldn’t yell at their captain the way he really wants to.

“No?” Nami purrs.

“No,” Zoro growls.

“Really?”

“Really!”

“Because that makes a lot of sense, now that I think about it,” the witch continues, looking as pleased as if someone has gifted her a bank, or a factory to print money.

“No it doesn’t,” Zoro protests. Robin is watching the argument with a serene smile, and Zoro is torn. On the one hand, this interrogation means she didn’t tell Nami about him, but on the other, she sure isn’t doing anything to help!

“Oh, it does,” Nami promises. “What are you going to do about it?”

“Pine after our dear cook, for the most part,” Robin says, finally joining the conversation. “Stare at him, with very little subtlety. Generally refuse to examine his emotions or notice anything around him.”

“You knew the whole time?” Nami accuses. Luffy yawns again, picking at his teeth, and rolls over to watch Brook tear through a guitar solo while Usopp makes weird acapella percussion noises.

“Oh yes,” Robin says. “It’s becoming painful to watch.”

“You better not say anything to him,” Zoro threatens. 

The cook already knows that Zoro is attracted to him. He doesn’t need to know it’s a longstanding thing.

“Nah,” Nami dismisses. “Nothing in it for me. It’ll be more fun to watch you stumble around him, now that I know.”

It’s the answer he wants, but Zoro doesn’t have to like it. There isn’t enough booze in the world to fix this conversation. He drains his glass anyway.

Brook’s solo comes to an end, and so does the spontaneous concert, complete with a flashing explosion from Franky and enthusiastic applause from the audience of Chopper and Luffy.

“Wow!” Chopper exclaims. “Did Sogeking really defeat all ten thousand bandits and win the hearts of all six princesses?!”

“Of course!” Usopp puffs up his chest, taking up his declaiming pose. “And yet, before dawn he had to leave, for his one true love was waiting for him, and even his affection for all six princesses combined could not compare to the radiance of the fair lady K-”

“Did they throw him a party?” Luffy interrupts. “Was there meat? When we save a princess there’s always meat.”

“That’s my cue to go to bed,” Nami says. She gets up to leave, and everyone else takes the hint. The cook makes Robin a pot of tea to take up on watch, Brook packs away his instruments, Franky carries Chopper into their bunkroom, and everyone else follows suit.

Zoro sits on his bed to pull his boots off, and Sanji walks to his locker. Zoro’s mouth feels dry. Is the love-cook going to strip right in front of them even after that debacle earlier? It shouldn’t be so weird, they all change in front of each other all the time, Franky is taking off his own shirt right this minute. There’s no privacy in their living situation, but Zoro is not ready to see the cook’s underwear again so soon.

It would be weirder if he left, if he went to change into those silky pajamas somewhere else and acted like something has changed. Nothing has, nothing important. There’s nothing new here, just a lot of things neither of them knew about the other.

Zoro still makes himself busy tucking his boots very neatly beneath his bunk. He has never once bothered to do this and will doubtless be unable to find them in the morning, and Usopp ruins all of his effort by interrupting the cook in the middle of changing.

“So hey, Sanji, can I ask a question?” Usopp asks. Zoro whips his head up so fast he feels dizzy.

Usopp, the coward, is safely tucked into his own bunk, blanket held up to his chest like a shield. He’s peering down at the cook, who is glaring back up at him with no pants and his shirt half-undone, damn it.

“You just did,” Sanji says, deadpan. He still stands up straight, one hand on the door of his locker and the other on his hip as he gives Usopp his attention.

Hand on hip, right under the hem of his shirt, and Zoro doesn’t want to look but he really, really can’t help it. These panties are black, with a simple band at the waist that shimmers differently from the rest of the fabric. The contrast against the cook’s pale skin is unreal, which is stupid, because the man wears black all the time and Zoro ought to be used to it, but no. 

“Um, I mean, can I ask a different question,” Usopp hedges.

Sanji raises an eyebrow at him. “Just did, shithead.”

“I mean, a real question, but I don’t want you to be mad, and I don’t mean it in a weird way, so-”

“Spit it out,” the cook sighs, obviously taking pity on Usopp’s red face and growing case of I-can’t-ask-dangerous-questions disease.

“Okay, so you promise not to get mad? It’s not a big deal or anything, I’m just wondering - why? The pajamas, and um. The underwear.”

Sanji flushes, gritting his teeth and fixing Usopp with a glare that really ought to inspire grovelling, or at least an apology and rescinction of the question. But the cook shakes his head a little, turning away to rummage a cigarette out of his locker, and when he looks back at the room his cheeks are still pink but his expression is, if not pleasant, at least a little less severe.

“It’s like I said yesterday,” he begins, frowning. “While we were separated… the people I was with like this kind of stuff. So I got a lot of it as gifts, and, well, I didn’t have much of a choice. They didn’t have anywhere I could buy a new suit, even if-” He stops, shaking his head again. “Those fuckers.”

Zoro imagines the cook receiving underwear as a gift, and wonders how many people died on that island while Sanji was there. Looking around the room, the weight of the questions he can see on the rest of their nakama’s faces should be enough to sink the Sunny. Accepting gifts and dressing like the locals is one thing, but the love-cook is still wearing that stuff.

“What else did Ivan-chan give you?” Luffy asks. “All his friends dress really weird.”

“Weird how?” Usopp says, looking warily back at Sanji as he does. The cook is scowling, but takes the moment while everyone’s attention is on their captain to finish changing. Zoro watches him unfasten a few more buttons before realizing what he’s doing and jerking his eye away.

“I dunno,” Luffy says, flopping half out of his bed to answer. “But it’s cool! They do whatever they want, so I like it, shishishi!”

“Sounds SUPER,” Franky agrees. “A man’s gotta dress how he wants!”

“I don’t want to hear that from you,” Sanji snipes. Zoro risks a look, and he’s got a fluffy matching robe on over his pajamas tonight, which makes the whole ensemble a little more bearable. A little. Damn ero-cook looks really soft in that.

“Bro,” Fanky complains.

“Ooh Sanji, what’s that?” Luffy demands. “I wanna touch!”

Usopp audibly gasps, which covers the way Zoro chokes when Luffy reaches out to grab Sanji, yanking the cook up into their captain’s bed. Between the bunks swinging and creaking and the cook cursing Luffy out, Zoro thinks Franky’s snickering and Brook’s quiet laugh go unobserved, but it’s not like Sanji could be much more enraged.

“What do you think you’re doing, put me down-”

“But Sanji is so sooooft!” Luffy exclaims. “Chopper, Sanji is almost as soft as you!”

Chopper only looks panicked to be dragged into this conversation, his little ears twitching in confusion. Zoro pulls their doctor into his own bunk and gives his fur a good ruffle. “Nobody’s as soft as Chopper.”

“That doesn’t make me happy, you bastard!”

“Dunno, that looks SUPER cozy!” Franky laughs, prompting a barrage of insults from the cook. It’s muffled from the way Luffy is wrapped around him, shoving Sanji down into his blankets.

The swinging is getting alarming. Usually Franky will tell them not to roughhouse in the bunks, but he’s busy laughing at Luffy’s antics. Sanji’s struggling eventually frees one leg, his hairy calf hanging over the edge of the bed, so Zoro grabs the cook’s ankle and jerks them both out onto the floor.

“Aw, Zoro,” Luffy whines. Sanji digs a heel into his stomach and rolls away when their captain’s arms finally release.

“Keep your hands to yourself,” the love-cook mutters, picking himself up. He’s red-faced and rumpled, hair messy and robe all askew, and it’s all Zoro can do not to mimic their captain. He’d really like to take Sanji into his arms right now.

Gaze trailing up the ridiculous length of the cook’s legs, Zoro looks up to his face and realizes Sanji has caught him staring again. This time they don’t look away, Sanji’s eyelashes fluttering as he blinks and Zoro’s eye widening in dismay instead, and Zoro regrets the recent touch of the cook’s skin under his hand. Should’ve just let Luffy have his way.

“So, is that from those guys too? This Ivan-chan?” Usopp asks, and Zoro turns to gape at him. Where’s that coward getting the nerve to keep talking about this?

Sanji sighs, shooting Luffy a dirty look when his hand creeps down toward his collar again. “Can we talk about this later, Usopp? Go to sleep already.”

“Will you actually talk to me later?”

“Sure, if you help me deep-clean the kitchen.”

“I’ll help, Sanji-san,” Brook says, “If you'll let me see your pa-” 

Sanji lands a kick to Brook’s head, and the ensuing snickering takes all the tension out of the room. Even the cook only grumbles a little as he goes to his bunk.

Zoro lies awake, but not for long. No point obsessing over the cook now, when he’ll no doubt have to face all this shit again tomorrow.

~o~O~o~

So maybe Zoro gets up a little later than usual, and maybe he slides into the galley right as the cook is plating up breakfast. It’s hardly the first time he’s been almost-late. And maybe he scarfs down his food a little faster than usual, and makes himself scarce up in the crow’s nest for most of the morning, and maybe he does more or less the same thing over lunch. This is normal behavior, he’s not avoiding the cook. Maybe he’s just not leaving any opportunities open for Sanji to confront him about the incident between them yesterday.

Anyone with sense would do the same thing. Zoro likes riling the cook up, but he doesn’t want to fight about his attraction to the idiot. He doesn’t need it thrown back in his face that way. Anyone with sense knows to give Sanji space after winding him up.

This is why he’s surprised to find Usopp and Brook in the galley with the love-cook when he goes down for a drink. Usopp is scrubbing the floor and Brook is dusting out cabinets while Sanji rearranges the dishes. The table is sparkling, cleaning supplies are set out on the counter, and there’s no air of irritation at all.

“You didn’t actually show Brook your panties, did you, ero-cook?” Zoro blurts out, remembering their musician’s offer last night.

Usopp yelps, putting a hand in the bucket of wash-water as he turns to gawk at Zoro. Brook bangs his skull against the inside of a cabinet, and the cook sets down a glass with an ominously solid clink. 

“No, marimo,” Sanji says. “What, worried you missed the show?”

Usopp slips on the wet floor again. “No!” Zoro protests.

“Sanji-san offered to make tea for Usopp and I while we chat, though I fear he intends to work our fingers to the bone first, ohoho! Of course, my fingers are only bone. Skull joke!” Brook’s voice echoes even more hollowly than usual from the interior of the cupboard.

“Usopp gets to ask one question for each half-hour they spend cleaning,” Sanji explains, glaring at the two. “But only if they do a good job, and I haven’t promised to answer.”

“Sounds like a raw deal,” Zoro comments.

“Hardly your business,” Sanji snaps. “Now get out of here before you track sweat all over the floor and Usopp earns more questions redoing it.”

“I’ll help,” Zoro decides. “Wanted a drink anyway.”

“No fair!” Usopp complains, while Sanji gapes at him. “We’re practically done, and if we finish faster-”

“Just sit down,” Sanji sighs, throwing a clean rag in Zoro’s direction. “As if I would trust you to clean my kitchen. But at least wipe your face, and leave your shoes at the door.”

Startled that the cook would let him stay, Zoro leaves his boots next to the others’ and pads across the damp floor to the bar. Sanji watches him with critical eyes.

“You can help me reorganize the storerooms later,” he adds. 

Zoro grumbles, but he’s realizing it’s a small price to pay, to get to hear more about the cook’s experiences while they were separated. It was obviously very personal, and Zoro wants to be here to learn more about Sanji. What he doesn’t understand is why the love-cook would allow it.

Regardless, Sanji passes him a glass of water, and Zoro sits quietly while they all finish cleaning the kitchen. The cook sends Brook and Usopp off the freshen up, puts on some tea, and starts prepping a few things for dinner. By the time they get back he’s even made snacks, and the four of them settle around one end of the table.

Sanji slouches in his chair, smoking a cigarette while Usopp’s hands shake around his cup of tea. Zoro shoves a tiny sandwich into his mouth, earning a glare. “Okay,” the cook says, “let’s get this over with.”

Brook opens his mouth, closing it with a snap when Sanji points a finger at him. 

“Nothing from you,” Sanji threatens.

“I’m just curious!” Usopp says, holding his hands up in a placating gesture. “You’re so into, y’know, all the chivalry and masculine pride and being so cool, it seems like a big change-”

“I haven’t changed,” the cook growls.

“Okay!” Usopp squeaks. “Uh, I like the beard, by the way, very manly-”

“Nobody in the Kambakka Kingdom wore facial hair,” Sanji says, cutting Usopp off with an impatient frown. “Felt like the right thing to do when I left.”

“But you, um, kept some of the other stuff?” Usopp asks hopefully. “Even though you didn’t have to, now that we’re back on the sea?”

Sanji drums his fingers against the tabletop, stealing a glance Zoro’s way before he answers. “Took a while to get used to the way they do things there, but yeah, two years is more than enough to make a habit. Wasn’t all bad.”

“So you liked some of it?” Usopp presses. “Like Luffy said, it’s cute - erm, forget I said that, I just mean it’s interesting, that robe looked really soft, I can see why that’d be nice, but some of the rest-”

Zoro sees Usopp’s gaze flick down, watches the cook’s eyebrow rise, and any remaining color floods out of the sharpshooter’s face.

“Maybe you should try it sometime,” Sanji says, in a silky tone that drips menace. “Find out what’s nice about it for yourself.”

Zoro can’t help but wonder if Usopp is going to get pounced on and threatened until he gets over this curiosity. The thought makes him frown. Wrongheaded as it was, that was kind of a reasonable approach given the way Zoro and the cook interact. It would be extra weird for Sanji to handle Usopp that way. 

Not to mention how jealous the idea makes him. Zoro wants the cook, and he can deal if Sanji just isn’t ever gonna be into guys, but watching him fuck around with Usopp would be intolerable.

“No, I-” Usopp pauses, swallows hard, and gives a weak smile. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be weird about it! You’re right, it doesn’t change anything! Not important at all! What else did you learn there?”

The cook explains some of the new recipes and fighting styles he learned, and the conversation evolves into a discussion of the new tricks they’ve all gotten to use since reuniting. Zoro is relieved that this seems to have straightened Usopp out, as the sharpshooter stops stammering as much and talks about his plants with his usual hyperbolic enthusiasm, and Zoro feels a little ashamed of that flash of jealousy. He doesn’t have any claim on Sanji, after all.

Easy to admit when there’s no threat to that nonexistent claim. Zoro makes a mental note to do some extra meditation tomorrow. He needs to focus; this whole thing is getting out of control.

“Okay, get out, I have to make dinner,” Sanji finally says, chair scraping back from the table as he whisks the tea plates away to the sink. “I never want to talk about this again, so you damn well better have gotten all your questions over with.”

Usopp nods furiously, scampering to the door to put his boots back on. “You bet, totally answered, I’m never gonna bother you again, the Great Captain Usopp never has to ask a question twice-”

“Good,” Sanji interrupts.

“Oho, it was so kind of you to humor us! There is nothing so valuable as a good conversation between friends, don’t you agree? In the spirit of our camaraderie, Sanji-san, would you show me your panties?”

Sanji vaults over the counter to get at Brook, but the skeleton is already running out the door, laughing like a lunatic. He must be crazy, to still ask the love-cook that.

“I’m gonna use his bones for soup stock,” Sanji mutters, glaring after Brook. “Skull joke  _ that _ , asshole.”

“And that would be absolutely fair, wow, thanks for the tea Sanji, gotta go!” Usopp blurts, making his own quick exit. The cook huffs, glancing down at the last pair of boots and across the clean floorboards to Zoro.

“Marimo,” Sanji says, in low warning tones.

“You’re gonna get that question every day,” Zoro tells him. 

“Oh, I’m aware,” Sanji sighs. “Now get out of my kitchen, or I’ll tell Luffy it’s your fault dinner isn’t ready.”

So they’re not gonna talk about yesterday yet. Zoro is more than fine with that, and takes the peaceful exit Sanji is offering. He can still get a nap in before dinner.

~o~O~o~

The cook doesn’t say anything about rearranging the storerooms after dinner, so Zoro pushes that obligation to the back of his mind, and goes up to the crow’s nest to train. He has the first watch tonight, so there’s plenty of time to get a few good sets in.

After a while, he realizes that he hasn’t heard Luffy’s voice on deck recently; everyone must have gone to bed. The moon is rising high over the darkness of the ocean, and that’s when Sanji shoulders his way through the hatch.

“You didn’t stay up to make me help move stuff, did you?” Zoro asks suspiciously.

“What? No, I don’t want you touching anything in my storerooms. I just said that to make Usopp shut up about shit being fair,” the cook says, looking offended by the mere idea.

“Then why are you bothering me?”

Usually that would get him a snarky insult, but Sanji makes a twisty sort of expression and holds out a bottle.

“I owe you an apology,” the cook says, and Zoro can only stare at him.

Maybe he heard wrong. Maybe it’s a fancy word that only sounds like  _ apology _ , and actually means a sneaky kick in the head after a drink. Maybe it’s the name of the wine, but no, when Zoro tries to get a look at the label the bottle is the same cheap, unmarked booze the cook always buys for him.

“A what?” Zoro finally asks.

“An apology,” Sanji hisses through clenched teeth. “I won’t say it again, so accept it with some grace, shitty marimo.”

“For what?” Zoro asks, still drawing a blank. If anything, he thinks the love-cook ought to be storming in here demanding Zoro apologize for lusting after him.

“For assuming the worst and jumping you in the bunkroom,” Sanji snaps. “Now, are you going to take this booze or not?”

Zoro takes the booze. “But aren’t you mad?”

The cook goes for a cigarette, lighting it in abrupt, frustrated motions. “You don’t have to be sorry for being attracted to me,” he grits out. Sanji focuses on the cigarette for long enough that Zoro thinks he’s finished before continuing. “I’m not upset about that. It’s flattering, if anything.”

“Flattering?” That’s one of the last ways Zoro would expect the love-cook to describe it.

“Are your ears broken today, or has the algae really taken over your brain?” Sanji demands. “I mean what I say. I value your opinion of me, and objectively speaking, you’d be a catch, so,” Sanji shrugs, smoke flowing out on a long exhale as he relaxes his shoulders.

“Only objectively?” Zoro’s mouth asks, without consulting his overwrought brain.

To his surprise, the cook’s ears turn red as he responds. “You may have noticed that I’m not totally opposed to the idea,” he mutters. “But I didn’t come up here to get hit on, marimo, so why don’t you sit down and drink that?”

It says something about his state of mind that Zoro has completely forgotten about the bottle in his hand. He drops onto one of the bench seats, feeling a touch weak in the knees.

“You’re  _ what _ ?” Zoro croaks out, after taking a swallow. He needs it for this sudden dryness in his throat.

“Not going to talk about that right now,” Sanji retorts dryly.

“Yeah, okay,” Zoro says. This conversation is already shocking enough. “Uh, thanks?”

“I let you in on Usopp’s little Q&A in part to make up for it,” the cook says, glancing sideways at him without meeting Zoro’s eyes. “Thought you might want to listen.”

“You didn’t really say much,” Zoro grumbles.

“I guess,” Sanji sighs, taking a seat nearby. “I’m not the only one, though. Gonna tell us what happened to that eye, marimo?”

Zoro shakes his head, and they sit in uncomfortable silence for a few minutes. It’s fair, Zoro supposes, but he still wishes Sanji would be a little more clear. Zoro’s eye isn’t a big deal, it’s over and done with and he’s adjusted to the loss. He has plenty of scars, and they only remind him why he has to get stronger. It’s not the same thing as whatever the cook went through, that obviously still affects him.

“I hated it because I enjoyed it,” the cook abruptly says, and it’s so much the kind of nonsensical thing Zoro expects to hear from him, he doesn’t bother to respond.

“It was exactly what they all said,” Sanji continues bitterly. “You’ll feel pretty, they said. It’s easier to get in touch with your inner maiden when you give her what she wants. You’ll love wearing something so frivolous, all the lace and pink silk and chiffon. It will help you to be soft, and gentle, and innocent. All that bullshit was true.”

“I don’t see much of that in you,” Zoro comments, watching the cook warily. 

Sanji growls around his cigarette, ruffling a hand through the back of his hair. “Because I figured it out. That can all be true, but it doesn’t have to mean the same things for me. Wearing lace and silk makes me feel attractive, and I like that. But I don’t have to call myself pretty, and I don’t have to act demure, and I don’t have to let out my inner maiden. Fuck, I hate that concept. I can wear whatever I want, and enjoy it, and still be myself.”

“Isn’t that obvious?” 

“You’ve never had to find out, have you? It’s harder than you think to wear a dress every day, and feel pretty, and listen to everyone around you talk about acting sweet, and graceful, and pure, and then still think of yourself as  _ you  _ at the end of the day.”

“You wore a dress every day?” Zoro asks blankly. His brain stutters over the idea, refusing to come up with images of what that would have looked like.

“I felt like a fake person, like they were forcing me to be somebody else, some girl I’d never met. But I still liked it, knowing I looked good, and that made it worse. I couldn’t reconcile it with who I want to be. Who I  _ am _ .”

“Well, you’re definitely no girl,” Zoro says. None of that makes much sense to him, but the cook seems calm about it. Indignant, but like he wasted time, not like he couldn’t get over it.

“Exactly,” Sanji says, blowing out a ring of smoke and reclining next to Zoro. “I listened to them prattle on about listening to your inner maiden for two years, and that’s not for me. But I can still enjoy the clothes.”

“Go back to the part where you wore a dress for those two years,” Zoro requests, feeling nearly desperate to understand. It almost sounds like…

“I enjoyed that, too,” Sanji growls, eyes daring Zoro to make something of it. “Once I got some that  _ fit _ , instead of the damn oversized nightgown they forced me into first.”

Sanji brought the other clothes he liked back to the Sunny. Zoro doesn’t dare ask. As badly as he wants to know, maintaining this barely civil conversation is more valuable to him.

“But you’re not wearing dresses now,” Zoro says instead.

“Fuck no,” Sanji snorts. “I missed a good, crisp suit like you wouldn’t believe.”

“Where’d you get that one?” Zoro asks. “Thought you said they didn't have stuff like that where you were.”

Sanji looks surprised by the question, hands running along the lines of his collar and tugging at his cuffs. Tracking the motion, Zoro nearly reaches out to trace the angles of the cook’s suit himself, instead making awkward eye contact when the cook answers.

“Ivankov had them made for me when I left,” the cook says, rolling his eyes. “Asshole put his own stamp on everything, but I wasn’t about to come back in a dress.”

“What do you mean?” Zoro has been distracted by the cook’s suits lately, sure, but he figured it was how Sanji filled them out. “Looks like a normal suit.”

“Well, first off, they fit perfectly,” Sanji huffs. “I think you noticed that, if the staring is anything to go by. Hard to get a suit that fits this well, so despite everything, I wasn’t gonna toss them.”

Zoro gives the idiot an evil glance, throwing back his head to take a heavy drink straight from the bottle. Sanji raises a judgmental eyebrow, but continues.

“But it’s other stuff I meant,” Sanji says, finally stubbing out his cigarette. His hands go to the buttons at the front of his jacket, and Zoro sits up at attention. Watching the cook’s pale hands undressing himself is at least as exciting as seeing his underwear.

By the amused look on Sanji’s face, he realizes this, and to Zoro’s disappointment he doesn’t do more than hold the front of his jacket open and gesture to the lining. It’s bright pink, with ivory polka dots.

“Hardly standard, but like I said, the fit is too good to pass up. Not like I’ve got the money to replace everything,” Sanji drawls. “Those bastards can’t make a plain dress shirt to save their lives, either. Look at this.”

Sanji shrugs out of his jacket, and Zoro is much less interested in the flash of pink than the way the love-cook’s body shifts as he moves, laying the jacket aside and lifting his wrists toward Zoro.

Zoro stares at the tendons visible through the cook’s pale skin, watches the strong fingers of one hand tick along the cuff on the opposite sleeve, and clearly misses the point, if Sanji’s impatient sigh is anything to go by.

“Lace, marimo,” Sanji points out, tugging at a narrow ruffle where the cuff meets the rest of his sleeve. “And fucking pearl buttons, on this one. Yesterday I was wearing a shirt with pin-tucks, have you ever seen me in pin-tucks before?”

“Dunno what a pin-tuck is,” Zoro shrugs, “but seems like normal prissy stuff, so I don’t know what you’re complaining about.”

“Of course you don’t,” Sanji grumbles. “You know, just this once, that’s reassuring.”

Without really thinking about it, Zoro grabs for one of the cook’s wrists. Maybe he’ll be able to tell that the buttons are different, but he doubts it. It’s stupid to have buttons on your sleeves, and this shirt seems to have even more than usual, but that’s all Zoro can guess.

The slim fit is nice, though. Zoro’s hand wraps all the way around the cook’s wrist, and that’s only emphasized by the way his shirts fit. That’s the cook, all slim lines that draw the eye from one point of strength to another.

Zoro slides a finger under the cook’s cuff, just to see if he can, or if it’s too tight for even that. Absently circling around to touch the warmth of his pulse, Zoro realizes that the idiot has stopped talking.

He looks up into one wide blue eye, a faint blush and curious expression on Sanji’s face. “You really are just into me,” he breathes, sitting calm and letting Zoro hold his wrist.

Zoro shifts his grip to clasp the cook’s hand, pulling him a little closer. “You said it doesn’t bother you.”

“It doesn’t,” Sanji says, reaching for Zoro’s arm with his free hand. The cook’s fingers brush his forearm, and he twitches, shaking his head like he’s trying to wake himself up. Jumping to his feet, the cook tears his hand out of Zoro’s and snatches up his jacket, striding over to the ladder.

“I gotta go get some sleep,” he mutters, casting a quick look over his shoulder. Zoro doesn’t know what to make of it, but the cook is halfway down to the deck before he gets a chance to figure it out.

~o~O~o~

Zoro wakes up the next morning to the sound of something crashing out on the deck. No one else is in the bunkroom, so the cook will probably be in here to yell at him for missing breakfast any minute; there’s no point trying to go back to sleep. As much as he would like to ignore the commotion outside, Zoro rolls out of bed.

There’s a giant crab scuttling around on the lawn, twice the size of Chopper in his Heavy Point, who is trying to catch it with a woefully small net. Luffy is hanging off one of the creature’s eyestalks, laughing and yelling for Sanji, while Usopp runs in circles with his arms full of fishing gear. On the upper deck, Nami is screaming, and the cook walks up to the railing with a basket of clean laundry.

“How many times have we talked about this, rubber idiot?” Sanji yells, hiking his basket up on one hip to gesture furiously at their captain’s antics. “If it’s too big to go in the aquarium, you have to kill it before landing it!”

“Ahh, Sanji, help!” Chopper screams, the tables turned as the crab starts advancing on him. Colliding with Usopp, the two go down in a heap of tackle, and the crab’s abrupt change of direction slams Luffy into the mast.

“Oof! Shishishi. Sanji, we’re gonna eat it, right?”

Zoro can practically hear the cook grinding his teeth as he sets the laundry aside. “You useless bastards,” he mutters, before leaping down onto the grass. One flaming kick caves the front of the crab’s shell in, and its heavy claws thump into the grass.

Unfortunately, the thing catches Sanji in its death throes, tossing the cook overboard with a startled yelp. He climbs back aboard, soaking wet with a disgusted glare partially concealed beneath his dripping hair, and stalks past Zoro into the guys’ bunk.

There’s a moment of silence on deck as the troublemakers peer after him, then Chopper giggles and Usopp collapses with a deep sigh. Luffy tugs at one of the crab’s legs and it spasms, sending everyone scurrying for cover again. Nami starts shouting orders and Zoro decides that he just hasn’t been awake for long enough to deal with this. Without thinking much of it, he ducks back into the bunkroom.

“Are you gonna make a habit of this, marimo?” Sanji growls, hopping on one foot as he strips out of his wet pants. Zoro catches a flash of red beneath his shirttails, but what he really can’t tear his eye away from is the length of Sanji’s legs and the way his damp skin shines in the low light.

“Maybe if you didn’t change clothes so often,” Zoro retorts, dropping onto the sofa and looking away.

“Oh yes, I’ll tell Luffy to stop dragging sea monsters onto the ship because I don’t want you stalking me into the bedroom when I need to get dry,” Sanji drawls. “Damn it, my cigarettes are soaked.”

The cook throws his wet things into the laundry basket with a wet slap, and Zoro hears the hinges of his locker squeak as Sanji opens it. Suddenly, he just has to ask.

“Hey cook,” Zoro says, turning back in Sanji’s direction. The love-cook hisses, glancing over his shoulder and tripping himself with a towel when he sees Zoro looking.

“Marimo!” he yelps from the floor. “Seriously, it’s weird after the last few days-”

“Did you keep any of the dresses?”

“Yes,” the cook answers warily, eyeing Zoro with a distrustful frown.

Zoro cranes his neck, trying to see around the cook and find out if he can spot anything that doesn’t look like his usual wardrobe in his open locker.

“Not in my  _ locker _ ,” Sanji snaps. “Sometimes Usopp goes through my stuff looking for lighters, and fuck if Luffy knows anything about privacy. Now turn around so I can get dressed, lecher, or better yet, leave!”

Zoro scoffs, but he turns around and settles into the sofa instead of leaving. “Can I see?”

“Why?”

“Curious,” Zoro shrugs.

“I don’t think I should encourage you,” Sanji mutters.

Tipping his head back over the back of the couch, Zoro gets an upside-down view of Sanji buttoning up a fresh shirt. Pantsless, with dry socks held up by garters and a nearly-familiar glimpse of colorful pattern at his hips. “What’s taking so long?” Zoro demands, unsuccessfully covering for his blush. “Anyway, I’m just curious. Not gonna change how I feel about you.”

That brings a blush to the cook’s face too, as he hastily picks out a pair of pants. “Definitely shouldn’t encourage you.”

“Can I or not?” Zoro demands.

“Fine,” Sanji snaps. “After breakfast, if you wash up. At this rate it’ll be nearly lunch before the kitchen is clean.”

“Fine,” Zoro repeats, following the cook back out on deck as he shrugs into his suit jacket. Franky and Chopper are dissecting the crab, and Brook steps in to intercept them as Zoro and Sanji head for the galley.

He’s carrying Sanji’s laundry basket, and despite the lack of any visible change Zoro just knows there’s an off-color gleam in his empty eye sockets. “Ohoho, Sanji-san, shall I put this away before breakfast? If you don’t mind my asking, which of these lovely panties are yours-”

Zoro ducks, and Sanji swings a leg over his head to throw Brook against the far rail. He catches the basket before anything can fall out, and stares into it mournfully.

“Every day,” Sanji sighs.

Peering into the basket, Zoro tries not to be too obvious about wondering the same thing Brook tried to ask. It all looks the same to him, but the idea of picturing the cook in underwear that belongs to Nami is gross.

“Yow!” Franky says, lifting his sunglasses to look between them and Brook’s lightly smoking bones. “He’ll get used to it, Cook-bro, and everything will be SUPER back to normal!”

“I don’t know, Skeleton-san can be quite persistent,” Robin counters, gliding past them with an empty coffee cup. “He hasn’t yet tired of asking Nami and myself. Is it time for breakfast, Cook-san?”

“Sis,” Franky complains, but Sanji is already spinning into action, dropping the laundry basket at Zoro’s feet and ushering Robin into the galley.

“Just leave that out here,” Nami advises, following a safe distance behind Robin. She leans in with a wink, gesturing into the basket. “But between you and me, Zoro, these pink ones and the ones with the little flowers, those belong to Sanji-kun.”

Ribbon and lace and thin panels of filmy gauze and- “Witch,” Zoro accuses, tearing his gaze away from the laundry and tailing Nami into the galley as she snickers.

Breakfast is cinnamon rolls the cook must have prepared the night before, and a last-minute addition of crab omelettes. It’s delicious and goes as quickly as ever, but Zoro can’t help feeling a touch resentful while he scrubs sticky syrup out of the baking pans. Still, soon enough Sanji is buffing a nonexistent smudge off one of the clean dishes and glowering at Zoro in the otherwise empty kitchen.

“You promised,” Zoro points out.

“You don’t even know anything about fashion, what are you going to get out of this?” Sanji complains, putting the dish away and jerking his chin at Zoro to follow him.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all of the lovely feedback thus far! Hope you enjoy the final chapter :)

They end up in a storeroom, one of the smaller ones filled with dry goods in meticulously maintained stacks. Nothing of interest to anyone but the cook - there isn’t even cola for Franky or so much as a forgotten stash of extra blankets. It’s got to be the most boring room on the ship.

Sanji squeezes between a few of the closely-packed shelves. “Stay by the door,” he orders, as if Zoro would try to follow him. There’s no chance; the cook barely fits, so Zoro would definitely get stuck and probably break something.

“Seems like a lot of work to hide something no one would care about,” Zoro comments.

“We don’t all have your moss-brained confidence,” Sanji retorts, voice muffled in the dimness. “Besides, imagine if Luffy got into my stuff and decided to run around the deck wearing a dress. Not the way I wanted people to find out.”

The cook comes back with a suitcase wrapped in canvas, a smear of dust across the shoulders of his jacket. “Probably all creased,” he mutters, tossing the canvas onto one of the shelves.

Zoro just waits, and Sanji eyes him for a few tense moments before setting the suitcase down with a sigh. He sits, gesturing Zoro down onto some of the boxes near the door.

“I kept a few,” Sanji says, drumming his fingers on the clasps locking the suitcase shut. “The ones I felt best in, after I started asking for styles I wanted. And the first dress, for the reminder I guess.”

Nodding, Zoro watches the way the cook’s hands move, long fingers and pale skin casting odd shadows in the low light. Nervous, but not quite the same anxiety that so often makes him go for a cigarette.

“Why’d you bring any, if you’re just gonna stash them back here and not wear them?”

“It’s not that I never want to wear them again.” Sanji sighs, and flips the clasps open. “I learned some hard lessons, over those two years. Seemed wrong to throw it all away.”

The cook stands back up, fishing some patterned fabric out of the suitcase. He holds it up to himself, looking down the length of his own body with a critical eye, and Zoro realizes that he’s made a mistake. What is he supposed to say about this? The damn dress doesn’t look like anything in particular to him - as far as Zoro is concerned, it’s not really any different from any other clothes, and he sure doesn’t know how to talk about fashion.

It’s blue, a solid deep-sea color on the top half and a floral pattern all over the skirt. It kind of looks like two pieces, but it must not be, if the cook can hold the whole thing up like that? Zoro opens his mouth, knowing he has to say something, or Sanji will think he doesn’t care after all.

“Blue,” he says, and winces. “Um. It’s nice? Matches… your eyes?”

Sanji stares at him, eyebrow rising into his hairline, and abruptly bursts out laughing. “You are so stupid,” he wheezes, crumpling the fabric in his hands as he folds over his knees. 

“Why would I know about that stuff,” Zoro mutters.

“Then why would you ask to see?” the cook asks, wiping tears out of his eyes with a final snigger. The dress drops to the pile of supplies, forgotten.

Zoro shrugs, glaring at the giggly idiot. “Wanted to learn more about you, not the dress.”

Sanji chokes a little, gaze snapping to Zoro with wide eyes. “The things you _say_ ,” he breathes, with a disgruntled frown.

“You say you didn’t change,” Zoro grumbles, “but you’re way less uptight now. Just wear the damn dress if you want to.”

“It would look weird with the beard,” Sanji dismisses, running his fingers along his chin.

“The beard already looks weird,” Zoro retorts.

“Careful, marimo, and here I was just thinking nearly benign things about you,” the love-cook threatens.

“Can’t have that.” Zoro rolls his eye and makes a show of yawning.

“Whatever, bastard, now that I know you get all hot under the collar for me, it kind of ruins the tough-guy act.”

“Still not bothered by that?” Zoro challenges. The cook can say whatever he wants, but he sure does clear out of a room fast when the subject comes up.

Sanji turns red, folding his arms across his chest to glare at Zoro. “After working through enjoying the clothes on Momoiro Island, it’s not such a big deal to accept liking men,” he snaps. “Liking _you_ , that’s something else.”

“Ouch,” Zoro says, not actually particularly offended. 

“It’s all fine in theory, but it’s a lot more intense in real life, is all I mean,” the cook allows.

“But you aren’t only into girls anymore?” Zoro asks. This is the important detail. If there’s even a chance, Zoro will do his best to win it with the cook.

“No,” Sanji says, after a long pause where he looked everywhere but at Zoro.

It hardly feels possible; Zoro has hoped for this for too long. “Really?”

“After accepting that I liked the clothes there, getting comfortable with being interested in guys was a piece of cake. I didn’t like the assumptions people associate with it, but I’ve gotten better at letting that kind of thing go.” The cook shakes his head, hand drifting to the pocket where he keeps his cigarettes before jerking away. 

“Who cares what other people think? No one on the crew will think differently of you, and nobody else matters.”

“I knew you would say that,” Sanji grumbles. “But I had a hard time, for a long time, because other people didn’t think I was strong enough. I never want that to happen again.”

“You’re one of the strongest people I know,” Zoro dismisses. People who think like that don’t matter. “Anyone talks shit, you can go ahead and cave their head in.”

Once again, he’s surprised by Sanji’s vehement reaction to a simple truth. The love-cook blushes, putting a hand over his face too late to hide it, and makes a strained noise.

“I don’t know anything about dresses or feeling pretty, but I bet you look good in them. You look good all the time, even with that stupid beard. And I prefer men, but nobody tries to tell me I’m weak because of it,” Zoro reasons, enjoying the spluttering noises coming from behind Sanji’s hand. “So you can stop being such a priss about everything.”

“You are so _stupid_ ,” Sanji hisses, taking his hand off his own face to grab for Zoro’s collar. Before he can process what’s happening the love-cook presses their lips together - it’s a kiss, Zoro realizes, Sanji is _kissing_ him - for one mind-numbing second, before shoving Zoro back again. “Why is that so romantic?!”

“You think it’s romantic that I don’t know shit about clothes?” Zoro asks blankly, a hand coming up to touch his own lips without any conscious input from his brain.

“No,” Sanji says, giving him a scalding glance. “Damn it all, you’re such an idiot. I like that you couldn’t care less about this kind of thing, that it doesn’t affect your opinion of me at all. It’s all about action, with you.”

Zoro nods. That’s the only way to form an opinion of people, it only makes sense. “So what I’m hearing here, that you’re flattered and interested in men and whatever that was about this being too intense...?”

“I could see it,” Sanji says, letting his fingers twine in the lapel of Zoro’s coat. “Like I said, you’re a pretty good catch. I could do worse.”

Zoro leans into the welcoming tilt of Sanji’s chin, and kisses him again. The cook smells like cigarettes and dust, cinnamon and a hint of something floral on his hands as he reaches up to hold Zoro by the back of his neck. Lips sliding together, just a flash of tongue, and Zoro has to pull back. He’s sure his heart will burst, otherwise.

They stare at each other. Zoro waits for Sanji to run off, the way he has the last few times they got close. Sanji doesn’t.

“Not too bad, marimo,” the cook says, one corner of his mouth tugging up in a smirk.

“Only not bad?” Zoro demands.

“My assessment is open to change,” Sanji says. 

“I’ll change it,” Zoro promises.

“Later.” The cook lays a finger over Zoro’s lips as he leans back in, and Zoro is startled enough by the intimacy of the gesture that he lets the feather-light touch stop him. With a grimace, Sanji glances around them and bends to pick up his dress, dusty now from the floor. “I have first watch tonight. Trade with me, and I’ll make it worth your while.”

“Why can’t I just come up to meet you once everyone’s asleep?” Zoro complains, more instinct to argue than any real disagreement.

“You’ll find out if you play along,” Sanji grins, folding his dress over one arm and putting a hand on his hip, all slinky lines and sharp angles.

Zoro can only nod, because the promise Sanji is making has finally filtered into his brain, and his imagination is running wild. There are a thousand things Sanji might be planning, and Zoro knows he’ll never match the love-cook’s creativity in this. Or anything, really. Damn curly-brow thinks of the weirdest shit.

Looking down at his secret suitcase, the cook frowns and pushes it along the floor with the toe of his shiny shoe, finally picking it up with an expression much more weighty than the little suitcase warrants. “Guess I might as well put this with the rest of my stuff. Not like anyone will be surprised anymore.” 

“Probably not,” Zoro says, and resists the urge to snark back when Sanji scowls at him.

~o~O~o~

An early lunch of sandwiches and seafood salad, and afternoon finds the cook out on the upper deck, doing more laundry. Zoro isn’t the only person giving that more attention than ever before.

Usopp has conveniently forgotten what seems like every possible tool he needs to tend his Pop Greens, and sidles back and forth past the love-cook every few minutes. Brook is playing a very pleasant and entirely unobjectionable melody nearby, and even the witch glances up over the top of her sunglasses whenever Sanji goes to hang something on the line. 

As for Zoro himself, it’s totally normal for him to train out on deck! He’s not staring at the cook’s pale skin where his sleeves are rolled up, or the way his pants stretch against the back of his thighs when he bends over, or the damp streaks in his hair where he keeps brushing it out of his eyes with wet fingers. Definitely not, and even if he is, none of the rest of these unsubtle morons can condemn him for it.

The laundry is mostly linens, stuff Sanji seems to have pulled out to disguise what he really came out here to take care of. It doesn’t work. Against the white tablecloths and dingy towels, that blue dress stands out like blood on snow.

“Where did you two run off to this morning?” Robin asks, wandering up beside him with a cup of coffee and an elegant shark-smile. Zoro growls at her.

“I’m not surprised that things have started to change between you,” she idly continues. “Although I am curious to hear how your relationship progresses, after all this time.”

Expression calm and sparkling as the placid sea behind her, Robin is, of course, unfazed by Zoro’s sub-verbal aggression. She probably deserves to know, too, after being a not-exactly-helpful witness to Zoro’s crush on the cook. Even just knowing someone else knew was a weight off his chest, when Zoro needed it.

“Storeroom,” he grunts, waving at the blue dress hanging on the line.

“So eloquent,” Robin murmurs, and Zoro flushes red.

“We’ve been talking about what he went through, the last two years,” Zoro explains. “He still had a suitcase of that stuff stashed away.”

“And you convinced him to un-stash it?” Robin asks. “Whatever for?”

“I only said he should wear it if he wants to,” Zoro says, shaking his head. “Hell if I know what he’s gonna do with it.”

“Really,” Robin says, with that deeply amused expression of knowing something no one else does, the one Zoro hates.

“His suits are just as prissy, why would I care.”

“A better attitude than some, I suppose. Cook-san was anxious about what everyone would think of his new preferences, you know.”

“Did he tell you girls that?” Zoro demands. Picturing Sanji out shopping with them, admitting insecurities over tea or whatever the girls like to do on their afternoons out, is too foreign to handle.

“No,” Robin says, “he was quite emphatic that he didn’t care what anyone said, in fact. But you know how he is.”

“He’s being stupid if he thinks any of us would be weird about it,” Zoro says. He’s only repeating what he told the cook earlier, but Robin always has to read deeper into everything he says. Zoro can see it in the depths of her blue eyes, so much lighter than Sanji’s but just as difficult to interpret.

“True.” Robin leans back against the rail, sharp gaze returning to the cook’s blue dress. “But tell me, Zoro, what do you think he wanted to happen, showing you before anyone else?”

“If it matters he’ll say something,” Zoro huffs.

“What must it be like, so see everything so simply,” Robin muses.

“Overthinking him will only give me a headache, and then he’ll pick a fight with me over it.” As if he could guess what the damn cook wants, anyway. Sanji probably doesn’t even know himself.

“Straight ahead, and no regrets,” Robin says lightly. “It’s very you. I’m glad to see you taking action.”

Zoro looks away, uselessly hoping she doesn’t see the red in his cheeks. They fall into silence, idly watching the cook pin a tablecloth to the line, until Usopp putters past with a small basket of plant cuttings. The sharpshooter pauses, and backpedals to set his basket aside and join them at the rail.

“So, Robin, is that, um, one of yours?” Usopp asks, waving at the blue dress with completely, transparently false indifference.

“I’ve never seen it before,” Robin replies. 

“I mean, it doesn’t really look like your style,” Usopp continues, eyes flickering between Robin’s gleaming smile and the laundry fluttering in the wind.

“It would be an unflattering neckline on me,” she agrees.

Zoro and Usopp both look at her chest. Neither of them can help it, and as usual, Robin is wearing a thin shirt with a plunging neckline that barely seems capable of keeping her modesty intact. Her cleavage is impressive enough that even Zoro has to take notice; he almost understands what the cook finds so appealing about it, and Usopp definitely has a more invested opinion. They both tear their eyes away in the same instant, gazes meeting in pure panicked embarrassment while she laughs at them. 

The differences between Robin’s chest and the cook’s are obvious, even if they both have the same pale skin. How that translates to the design of a dress, Zoro has no idea. Looking at the thing hanging on the line, he can’t even guess what the cut actually is.

“Right,” Usopp says, with a hard swallow. “So it… probably wouldn’t look good on Nami, either.”

“No, and the colors likely wouldn’t do any favors for her complexion,” Robin tells them.

They both swivel to look at Nami, who glares at them over the top of her newspaper. Zoro averts his eye. Robin can take a little accidental ogling in stride, but the witch is something else.

“Because she gets that nice tan,” Usopp prods.

“It would be an unfortunate choice on you as well,” Robin agrees. “With those florals.”

Zoro already knows who that dress belongs to. Usopp clearly does too, and is just too much of a coward to say it. And Robin is merciless, smiling at him with perfect comprehension and clear enjoyment.

They stare at each other for a long moment, Usopp beginning to sweat under Robin’s implacable gaze and Zoro wondering how his life has come to this. Then the cook comes bustling out of the galley with his usual tray, twirling over to offer Robin an elegant drink and thrusting plain glasses into Zoro and Usopp’s hands.

“The dress is mine, shithead,” he growls, “and I could hear everything you said out here, the damn window’s open.”

Usopp squeaks and nearly drops his iced tea. 

“But Robin-swan, you do yourself a disservice, I’m certain you would look captivating in anything!” Sanji continues. Zoro sighs. Apparently the idiot is committed to acting like this isn’t a big deal. 

“Such flattery,” Robin murmurs, as the cook settles down.

“Are - are you…” Usopp stammers. “Are you going to wear it?”

“Haven’t decided,” Sanji snaps, glaring at him. “But the marimo made me realize I can if I want to, and keeping nice clothes all folded up in storage is just a waste.”

“ _Zoro_ made you realize-?”

“Well, we’ve all seen curly’s damn underwear and fancy pajamas,” Zoro mutters. “This isn’t so different.”

“Shut up,” Sanji tells him, with a halfhearted kick.

To his surprise, Usopp nods. “I guess that’s true. So, Robin, all that about the neckline and the colors, it sounds like Sanji’s got good taste?”

“He certainly seems to know how to choose flattering clothes,” Robin says, hiding a grin. “I imagine this is a perfect style for you, Cook-san.”

“Robin-swan is too kind,” Sanji splutters, blushing hard. “It’s important, finding your own style. I had to figure out how to make the clothes fit who I am.”

Robin nods sagely, smiling at the cook. “An overlooked necessity. They do say that the clothes make the man, but perhaps that shouldn’t always be the case.”

“Not like that,” Sanji says quietly, gaze skittering away from her clever eyes. “Not the man I want to be.”

Now that it’s out in the open, Usopp seems strangely at ease with the whole idea. “Huh. Well, you do you, Sanji.”

“I will,” Sanji says indignantly, back to his usual brazen self as if the vulnerable moment hadn’t happened. “Now, don’t you have better things to do than stand around and gossip? Robin-swan, can I get you a snack?”

Usopp wanders away to his workspace, Robin brushes off the cook’s endless offerings, and Zoro finds a spot to nap.

He’s woken soon after by the clatter of bones on wood, as Brook collides with the railing not far from Zoro’s head.

“For the last time, NO!” Sanji screeches, laundry basket braced on one hip as he glares at their musician.

“Sanji-san,” Brook complains, brushing himself off and perking up. “Do you mean this is the last time you’ll say no, perhaps?”

“Only if this is the last time you ASK!” 

“You’re insane,” Zoro says, watching Brook laugh as Sanji retreats inside with a huff.

“Ohoho, Zoro-san, what is sanity but the average sense of the common man? And none of us are common men, are we? Certainly not!”

“Can’t argue there,” Zoro sighs. Doesn’t mean the skeleton will survive Sanji’s wrath, if he keeps this up.

Brook sits back down beside him, fleshless fingers tapping out a playful rhythm on the rail. “It’s all in good fun, you know.”

“I know.”

“I simply wouldn’t want you to be concerned.”

“Why would I be concerned?” Zoro grumbles. “If you want to get your skull cracked, that’s your problem.”

“Oho! Certainly a problem, but we have Chopper-san to take care of these old bones! What I mean, my friend, is that I hope you understand that I have no designs on Sanji-san’s attention, so there’s no need for you to worry!”

It’s a deductive leap because why the fuck would Zoro be thinking that in the first place, but he’s pretty sure Brook is assuring him that he doesn’t have to feel jealous. Which is crazy, for a thousand reasons Zoro doesn’t even want to touch, but…

“The damn ero-cook can take care of himself, what are you going on about?”

“When it comes to matters of the heart, I know that sense has little to do with it! Especially with a newfound connection it’s only natural to feel pressured to confirm your stakes, as it were, but there is no cause to glare so fiercely when I ask after Sanji-san’s panties!”

“I’m not glaring,” Zoro says, although now that he’s thinking about it there’s a dull tension in his brow and shoulders.

“You definitely are,” Nami’s voice calls from beyond her orange trees. “All the time lately.”

Brook laughs. “You see? And there is no cause for it at all, my boy! No one here is trying to take Sanji-san away from you.”

“Please take him, in fact,” Nami mutters.

Zoro gapes at them, turning between Brook’s cheerful grin and Nami’s invisible voice. The leaves of her trees rustle like they’re laughing at him.

“Ah, young love,” Brook quips. “Oho! We all wish the two of you only the best, you know.”

With a groan, Zoro puts his head in his hands. It doesn’t matter how they knew, when he and Sanji have only barely admitted a mutual _something_ hours before. His attraction to the cook was hardly a secret anymore, after all. But it’s still embarrassing to get a pep talk like that from anyone, let alone a talking skeleton and _Nami_.

~o~O~o~

They’re still eating crab for dinner, perfectly seasoned crab cakes and crispy crab rangoons and simple, delicious crab legs soaked in butter. No matter what ridiculous ingredients fall into his lap, the damn cook can make a masterpiece of them. Of course, he’s had a lot of practice cooking up massive sea creatures with enough variety to keep the crew eating them. 

There’s a nervous edge to Sanji as everyone settles in and starts eating, an extra fussy level of flitting around and rearranging dishes. Zoro doesn’t have to wonder why. The cook wasn’t too subtle with the laundry earlier, after all.

Maybe it makes sense that Sanji didn’t want to come out and just tell everyone how he dressed on Momoiro Island, but Zoro can’t help thinking that the idiot could have saved himself some stress by coming out with it straight from the beginning. They could have avoided all these half-admissions and in-between moments.

“So, you’ve been holding out on us, Sanji-kun?” Nami casually says, wiping her lips and fixing the cook with a sideways glance.

Sanji stumbles, sloshing a pitcher of juice over Usopp’s hair. “Nami-swan? Of course not, anything I have is yours-”

Usopp has the good sense not to make so much as a peep, instead ducking his head down and dabbing the juice out of his hair with Luffy’s untouched napkin. Getting into Nami’s sights when she uses that voice is bad news, no matter the reason.

“You let Robin and I help you shop for lingerie, but not dresses?” Nami complains.

“Not at all, mellorine, my love, it’s not like that!” Sanji insists, looking like he’s seconds away from dropping to his knees at her feet. 

“Dresses?” Franky asks.

“But it would have been so much fun,” Nami says. “You have such pretty hair, Sanji-kun, I bet it’s easy to coordinate outfits.”

Zoro relaxes a little. The witch is only teasing the love-cook, and Zoro has to admit that Sanji always deserves it.

“I’m not - I won’t… it’s-” Sanji splutters. “It would have been a waste of money, my dear, I’m not going to wear them!”

Even the desperate appeal to her financial sense doesn’t take the playful pout from Nami’s face. “Boo.”

“Dresses?” Franky asks again, with increased urgency.

“Are you that surprised?” Nami dryly inquires. “After everything else?”

“Nah, I guess not,” Franky says, blinking. “Sure is a mental image though, Curly-bro.”

The moment teeters on the edge of disaster, Sanji glaring at Franky while Nami watches with a gleeful smirk. Zoro knocks Luffy’s hands away from his plate and does his best to finish his meal before the table gets upended.

“Not something I want you thinking about,” Sanji finally snaps, whirling away to tend something back in his kitchen.

“Too late,” Usopp mutters, almost too low to hear, with a fearful glance over his shoulder.

“So I take it you won’t be changing your daily wear at this time, Cook-san?” Robin asks. Her fingers play delicately over the tabletop, an extra arm warding off Luffy’s not-so-sneaky grab for her food. 

“No, I like this look,” Sanji says, gesturing down at his suit. “A dress isn’t as practical for me, day to day.”

Robin hums in agreement, and Zoro does his best to ignore the disappointed faces around them. Curiosity is one thing, but Franky and Usopp in particular better start keeping their imaginations to themselves.

“And I wouldn’t want to fight in one,” Sanji adds, then freezes and goes red. Zoro chokes, coughing helplessly as Luffy steals the rest of his dinner, their captain’s victorious whoop drowned out by the rush of blood in his ears.

That’s an image he didn’t need, picturing the cook doing his usual boneless high kicks and acrobatic spins in a short skirt, knowing what Sanji likes to wear under it these days. Judging by Nami’s raised eyebrows, Brook’s gaping jaw, and Usopp’s spluttering, everyone else is having the same thought.

“You’d have to-” Franky begins, an inventive gleam sparking through his eyes before he snaps his jaw shut, swallowing back the rest of that comment. By the dark look on Sanji’s face, it’s the right call.

“Didn’t you have to fight while we were separated, Cook-san?” Robin asks innocently. “Your combat skills certainly seem to have improved over the past two years.”

“I - I did, Robin-swan,” Sanji weakly responds.

“Then-” Usopp begins, closing his mouth with an audible click of teeth.

“In a dress,” Sanji grits out. “Happy? It was sink or swim in that place, and I’m no hammer.”

“Now you know what we deal with,” Nami mutters. Zoro will admit that he’s wondered about her wardrobe choices on occasion, but at least the witch doesn’t flip through the air the way Sanji does when she fights.

The cook looks like he has an explanation on the tip of his tongue, but the questions practically falling out of Usopp and Franky’s mouths keep it in place. Probably for the best.

“It’s not something I want to repeat, now that I can wear my suits again,” Sanji dismisses, ending the conversation by dropping a platter of bacon-wrapped scallops onto the table. Everyone has to scramble to get their fair share, and there’s no opening to bother the cook about his clothes again.

~o~O~o~

Watching dusk chase the last flames of sunset across the waves, Zoro doesn’t wonder what Sanji is planning. Well, he’s wondering, but not trying to guess. Like he told Robin, there’s no point wondering.

He trusts Sanji, even if he can’t predict the idiot cook. Whatever he’s got up his sleeve, Zoro is waiting with much more anticipation than suspicion. It’s that unpredictability that makes Sanji so much fun.

Zoro knows there are things he doesn’t know about the cook, but they don’t matter. He knows Sanji, and even all this, it fits. It suits the damn ero-cook’s vanity, his posturing, his idiotic flamboyant need to show off and _please._ Zoro can’t imagine learning anything about the cook that will really turn any of that on its head, least of all clothes. Sure it was a shock, but mostly because Zoro couldn’t get his own reactions under control.

So he’s waiting up in the crow’s nest, feeling confident that he can take whatever Sanji is planning to throw at him. That said, Zoro hopes it will involve more kissing. He’d like to revisit the overall mood of that aborted experience in the mens’ bunk.

The sexy parts, not the dumbfounded humiliation. Obviously.

He’s distracted, thinking about other ways that encounter might have gone, when Sanji shoulders his way into the crow’s nest, pausing halfway through the hatch to slide a sake tray across the floorboards. At first Zoro thinks the cook is wearing that shirt Nami bought for him; the neckline is familiar, isn’t it? Showing off his collarbones like that? And the thin material isn’t like the rest of Sanji’s wardrobe, but the sleeves are different, stopping half-way down his forearms and leaving his pale wrists bare, and that color blue-

It’s the dress, Zoro realizes, and wants to smack himself for not recognizing it immediately. Actually, this is the most obvious thing Sanji could have done, and Zoro is an idiot for not expecting to see the cook come up dressed this way. 

“For later,” Sanji mutters, pushing the tray farther in and climbing the rest of the way out of the hatch.

Zoro watches his shoulders heave as the cook hauls himself into the room, collarbones shifting under milky skin. The visible expanse of that is even greater than the t-shirt, now that he’s looking; a wider sweep and deeper plunge, though it’s not enough to point out cleavage Sanji doesn’t have. Absorbed by the view, Zoro barely cares to look at the rest of the cook’s outfit.

He can’t process all this fast enough. Sanji stands, brushing his hands down the skirt part of the dress, and Zoro’s mouth feels dry as he follows the movement. Where the cook’s hands stop is pretty much where the skirt does, leaving practically the entire length of Sanji’s legs bare. The floral designs on the skirt are delicate but the colors are bold, which Zoro can’t help thinking suits the love-cook perfectly.

The cook’s skin looks so flawless it’s unreal, and as he turns the light catches on his thighs and the curve of his calves, giving them a sheen that Zoro finally recognizes as sheer stockings. He toes off his shoes, minimalistic little flats with a kittenish heel, and Zoro has to look away from all the muscles flexing in the cook’s legs from the movement.

“I still have jewelry, too. Perfume, all that kind of stuff,” Sanji says, nudging the shoes aside. “Figured you wouldn’t care. Above your pay grade, huh, marimo?”

It’s all Zoro can do to shake his head, although that mention of perfume is intriguing.

“So, what do you think?” the cook asks. He’s holding very still, head slightly tilted as his hands twitch at his sides.

Zoro has to admit, the dress contrasts against Sanji’s pretty skin in all the right places, deep blue making the cook practically glow like the moon rising outside. It hugs his strong shoulders and narrow waist, the flare of the skirt creating an illusion of curves and making his legs look even longer than they are, where the hem stops just below his fingertips.

“Wow,” Zoro says.

“Good enough,” Sanji mutters.

“You know you didn’t have to do this,” Zoro blurts out. Sure, he’s been asking a lot of questions about Sanji’s updated wardrobe, but…

The cook glares at him. “I want to.”

Zoro wants him so badly, he doesn’t know how to articulate what he means. Sanji likes making people happy - not _Zoro_ , to date, but still - and he doesn’t want that to influence the love-cook’s decisions. It’s clear what Sanji’s intentions are, coming up here this way, but Zoro doesn’t want it unless _Sanji_ wants it, all the way down at the heart of whatever repressed, selfish desires the cook tries to hide. Maybe that doesn’t make any sense. Maybe it’s all the same thing.

“You should know I don’t do anything for you unless I want to,” Sanji continues, like he’s reading Zoro’s mind. “It’s not all about you, shit-swordsman, but I came up here to be with you because I want it.” 

That’s a relief, enough to get Zoro out of his head. And more; the thought that Sanji wants to spend time alone with him is too hot to hold, too bright to examine for very long.

“Are you happy to dress like that again?” Zoro asks, diverting his own attention back to the nerve Sanji is showing, coming up here in that dress.

“It feels normal to wear, but strange to wear _here_ ,” Sanji says, looking around the crow’s nest and running his hands down his thighs. “It’s like those dreams where you walk outside and realize you’ve forgotten your pants.”

“Well, you have,” Zoro points out.

The cook shoots him a withering glare, and taps out a cigarette. Zoro isn’t sure where he was keeping them; the dress doesn’t look like it has pockets, but it’s not like Zoro would know.

“What is wrong with you,” Sanji mutters, after taking a deep breath of smoke. Making a rude gesture in response, Zoro watches the cook go through the familiar motions.

Only, they’re not familiar. Sanji is holding his cigarette differently, in some way Zoro can’t quite place. Maybe it’s the angle of his wrist, or the position of his fingers, or something in the flow of his movements as he takes the cigarette from his lips and tilts his head to blow the smoke out in a thin stream. Whatever it is, the difference is more jarring than seeing Sanji stomp around in pastel silk or flirty skirts.

“What?” Sanji asks, when Zoro is quiet for a moment too long.

“You’re doing that differently,” Zoro bluntly replies. Maybe it’s stupid to say, but instead of mocking his observation the way Zoro half expects, Sanji twitches and shakes out his stance.

“That’s the fake girl again,” Sanji says bitterly. “Be more ladylike, they said. You can’t just look the part, you have to act it too.”

Zoro watches the cook with a swordsman’s eye as he resettles his weight, squares his shoulders and lifts his chin with a belligerent tilt. That’s the Sanji he knows, and Zoro feels tension seep out of his own frame. A flash of blue under his stupid bangs, the ember of his cigarette casting a red glow across his golden hair as he brings it to his lips.

It’s things like that he loves about the cook, details that will be the same no matter what the idiot is wearing. There’s still something to be said for the dress, showing off so much more of his skin than usual, but his favored suits flaunt his body just as well in different ways.

“Weird, seeing you move that way,” Zoro says, as he realizes that he’s just been staring as Sanji smokes. There’s a smug confidence to his expression that tells Zoro the cook absolutely noticed.

“Old habits,” Sanji says, visibly shaking off the bitterness. “Guess wearing an actual dress again brought out the muscle memory. Certain ways of moving just look better in a skirt.”

“I like how you normally move better,” Zoro mutters.

“Me too,” the cook says, stubbing out the cigarette with a dismissive sigh. He walks the last distance over to Zoro, a slink to his steps that isn’t really familiar, but doesn’t feel wrong. The opposite, really; Sanji has Zoro’s heart racing even before he gets close enough to drape 

his arms around Zoro’s neck.

Zoro grabs Sanji by the waist, holding him right where the top and skirt of his dress meet. Leaning in, he plants a light kiss on the cook’s lips, moving quickly to kiss the corner of his jaw and the warm skin beneath his ear as well, before Sanji can react.

“So, did you come up here just to show off?” Zoro asks, gesturing at the cook’s fancy outfit. He has to take one hand off the idiot to do it, which is bad, but it gives him the chance to put that hand a bit lower when he brings it back, which… still isn’t very suave, but better than flat-out groping Sanji’s ass.

“Well, and to make out,” Sanji says. He tilts his head, smirking, and Zoro can tell he isn’t fooling anyone.

Zoro nods. “I support that.”

This time Sanji moves first, sliding one hand into Zoro’s hair to angle his head how the cook wants him. “Thought you might,” Sanji whispers against Zoro’s lips, closing the last breath of distance before he can respond.

Zoro sucks on the cook’s bottom lip, doing his best to make it gentle, as gentle as Sanji’s nails tickling through the hair at the back of his neck. It’s hard when what he really wants to do is taste the back of the cook’s damn throat, and maybe swallow his tongue in the process. Sanji deepens the kiss, licks into Zoro’s mouth, and Zoro is fairly certain he could do this all night.

He makes a disgruntled noise when the love-cook pulls away, tightening his hands around Sanji’s waist. Smirking at him, Sanji tilts his head toward the benches lining the room.

“Make this a little more comfortable?” the cook suggests, running his tongue over his reddened lower lip. The straightforward desire makes Zoro comfortable enough to loosen his grip.

“Sit in my lap?” Zoro asks, running his fingers over the cook’s hips, teasing down his thighs. His fingers brush the hem of the dress and he stops, stroking back up to hold Sanji’s waist. As much as Zoro wants to feel up the cook’s legs in those stockings - or at all, really - he’s not sure he’ll be able to stop if he starts.

“Mm, gonna put your hands up my skirt?” Sanji asks, leaning into Zoro’s hands. Zoro noses into the hair behind his ear, unwilling to trust his own voice after the cook’s teasing tone. “Works for me.”

“Oh yes,” Zoro breathes, hips bumping against Sanji’s.

He can’t get to the bench fast enough, and even so bitterly regrets having to take his hands off the cook to do it. Sanji smirks at him, tugs his skirt down a little, and spreads his legs over Zoro’s lap. Scooting back into the cradle of his hips, the cook gives him a crooked grin over his shoulder. “This what you were thinking?”

Zoro nods emphatically, and slides his hands over Sanji’s hips, gripping him right at the top of his thighs. The cook hitches in a little breath and ghosts his hands over Zoro’s.

“Full disclosure, I haven’t actually… done this,” Sanji mutters, turning his face away. The tips of his ears are bright red. “Like this. So let’s just mess around, and if it’s good I’ll consider letting you try it again sometime.”

Zoro nods again, grip tightening, before realizing that the cook can’t see him. Sanji can probably feel it, Zoro’s nose bumping his shoulder through the thin material of the dress, but he should try to articulate this properly.

“Whatever you want,” Zoro promises, and has to pause to clear his throat. “Um. Can I touch you?”

“Aren’t you already?” Sanji asks, arching back against him. “Yes, marimo. That’s the idea.”

“Where should I start,” Zoro murmurs, leaning in to brush his lips against the nape of Sanji’s neck. He’s spent so much time lately looking at the cook, he can’t decide where to put his hands.

Shivering, Sanji peers back over his shoulder, a blush high on his cheekbones. “Let’s make this simple,” he says, and grinds into Zoro’s lap, grabbing his hands and pulling them farther between his own thighs.

The skirt is very soft, an exotic texture under Zoro’s fingertips, but the hardness beneath that is familiar. It matches the heat Zoro is pressing up against the love-cook’s rear. Sanji makes a satisfied sound as Zoro pets his growing erection, and Zoro can’t help thrusting his hips forward.

Sanji rolls his own hips back with a deep hum. “Excited, marimo? This enough for you?”

“Could be,” Zoro retorts, “but why stop here?”

“Doesn’t sound like us,” Sanji agrees. “C’mon, get me out of this dress.”

Zoro fists his hands in the elegant fabric, and bunches it up Sanji’s thighs. The entirety of the skirt fits in his grasp, leaving the cook’s pale skin exposed between there and the tops of his stockings. He’s eager to touch that instead, letting the fabric flow back over his wrists as he strokes Sanji’s inner thighs.

“Still wearing the fancy underwear?” Zoro asks, breathing the question into Sanji’s ear as he sneaks his hands higher.

“Thought you didn’t care about that,” Sanji quips.

“I can get into it.”

“Good,” Sanji purrs, in the most lascivious voice Zoro has yet heard from the man. “Because it’s brand new, and I’m wearing it for you.”

Pressed as close as he can get to Sanji’s back, Zoro catches a glimpse of one half-lidded blue eye, and he realizes that this isn’t gonna cut it, no matter how convenient and titillating it is to hold the love-cook in his lap and feel him up beneath the skirt. Instead, he grabs the cook under his thighs and swings him around into a bridal carry, laying Sanji on the bench and crouching over him. This way he can see those blue eyes widened in shock, the flush spreading from the cook’s face down his throat, and the sheer length of his legs where the dress isn’t covering him at all.

“Show me,” Zoro demands.

The ero-cook smirks at him, slowly trailing one hand down his body until he can toy with the hem of his skirt, where it’s fallen barely past his hips. “I don’t think you’ll appreciate it.”

Making a frustrated noise, Zoro runs his own hands up Sanji’s legs, and pushes the skirt over his hips. Sure, he’s more interested in the muscles beneath his hands than the complicated textures beneath the skirt, but Sanji has no grounds to say Zoro isn’t invested in this.

“What do you think?” The cook says this on a shivery, excited breath, and Zoro realizes something.

“When you accused me of having a thing for your fancy underwear, it was because you do, wasn’t it?” he asks, watching Sanji’s pale fingers tease at the edges of the lace.

The love-cook is already pink, but he turns his face away, hands stilling for a moment as his breath hitches. “What do you _think_ ,” he repeats, chest rising and falling as rapidly as the heartbeat Zoro can feel in the shallow veins beneath his hands. There’s a large one here, he knows, vulnerable at the crease between thigh and hip.

“You really do have a thing for it,” Zoro mutters, taking in what Sanji has chosen to wear under the dress. “You wanted me to care.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Sanji grumbles. But he’s lying there in the most complicated pair of panties Zoro has ever seen, already half-hard under the delicate material, and blushing all the way to his hairline.

Feeling clumsy as he draws his fingers across all the different textures, Zoro tries to figure out what exactly is going on down here. It’s all the teasing details of the panties Zoro has seen so far, and then some. In fact, between the lace… belt... and little ribbon ties holding the cook’s stockings up, there are at least two or three things here that Zoro has never seen before, let alone had the opportunity to touch.

Pink, for the most part. Wide ivory bows barely lighter than Sanji’s skin at the hips, tiny blush-colored ones on the ties holding his stockings up. The panties themselves are mostly silk, with lace overlays; the belt thing tight around Sanji’s waist is entirely lace, his pale skin showing through the intricate floral pattern. 

Even this slow exploration is doing it for Sanji, the cook squirming restlessly under Zoro’s cautious hands. It’s all new enough that he doesn’t want to ruin anything - wrecking the cook’s things is a surefire way to kill the mood.

Sanji lifts a knee, spreading his legs and drawing his calf up Zoro’s side, and even through his clothes the feel of the ero-cook’s leg sliding against him is scintillating. Making a sound he can’t even define, Zoro has to pause with one hand teasing beneath those narrow ribbon straps and the other tantalizingly close to the bulge of Sanji’s erection under the silk.

“Get undressed,” the cook orders, catching his breath hard. He sits up enough to stretch an arm behind himself, undoing his zipper and pulling the whole dress off over his head.

When he’s done gaping at that rushed show of flexibility, Zoro yanks his own clothes off as fast as he humanly can. Down to his underwear - which he only really wears because of a furious lecture Nami gave him way back when, after finding out that he didn’t always bother - Zoro has to stop again, to watch Sanji fiddle with one of the fluffy bows over his hips. 

“I’m going to leave this on,” he decides, looking up at Zoro under his lashes.

Zoro leans back in between the cook’s long legs. Extensive petting sounds pretty good to him; at this point, much more would get too overwhelming. So he strokes down Sanji’s thigh to trace the delicate bones in his ankle and then up again, appreciating the frictionless slide of the stockings over the cook’s toned muscles, finally resting his grip right where his skin is bared over the top of them. He just braces himself with the other hand for the time being, watching Sanji’s heated expression and the flush traveling down his chest.

“Do these feel good?” he eventually asks, sliding a couple fingers beneath the elastic material. The ribbons seem kind of superfluous, lying loose against the tops of Sanji’s thighs, but he can’t deny they look nice.

“Yeah,” Sanji sighs, folding his other leg around Zoro’s body and pulling him closer. “You like them, right?”

“It’s not about me,” Zoro says, “but I think you look great, love-cook.”

That gets him a full-body shudder, Sanji’s eyes wide and dark as he wets his lips.

He’s beginning to understand what the cook meant earlier, when he said the appeal of lingerie like this is the tease of it. The rose-pink silk isn’t doing anything to hide Sanji’s excitement, but somehow being unable to actually _see_ it is ramping up Zoro’s own.

Zoro gets serious and runs his hand over the cook instead, feeling him up through the delicate material. Sanji moans a little, shifting his legs against Zoro again.

Yeah, he can get into this. How turned on the ero-cook is by the lingerie would be enough, even if Zoro wasn’t starting to appreciate it himself.

Hauling Sanji back up into his lap, he can pull the cook right in against his hips. It’s a good thing the idiot is so damn flexible - his legs spread easily around Zoro’s body, allowing their matching erections to meet without any awkward fumbling. It also puts the cook’s pale chest right at eye-level, so Zoro takes the opportunity to mouth at the planes of muscle.

“Stop throwing me around like I weigh nothing, stupid musclebound marimo,” the cook mutters, but his voice is breathless and the grip of his hands against the back of Zoro’s head and shoulders is anything but forbidding. Nipping at Sanji’s collarbone, Zoro is treated to a sharp little gasp and the scrape of the cook’s nails along his shoulder blade.

Idiot curly-brows is near solid muscle, far from weighing nothing, but compared to Zoro’s favorite weights he might as well be. “No.”

Sanji grumbles and vindictively rolls his hips down, taking the hand out of Zoro’s hair to sneak it between their bodies instead. The cook’s fingers brush his lower abdomen, and Zoro can’t retrain a gasp himself.

As Sanji leans in to kiss Zoro’s temple, he can feel the grin suffusing the love-cook’s voice. “Whatever. Then put your hands on me, asshole.”

Zoro would argue that his hands are already all over the cook, holding Sanji down firmly in his lap, but as the cook gets a hand into Zoro’s underwear the distinction becomes clear. So he loops one arm around the small of Sanji’s back to maintain that leverage, and moves the other along patterns of silk and lace.

At first he just rubs against the front of the cook’s panties, enjoying the way the smooth material feels over the heat of his erection while Sanji moans softly into his hair. But the hardness is barely contained by the delicate fabric, and Zoro is getting tired of the tease.

Getting his fingers under the waistband of Sanji’s panties, Zoro barely has to pull before the cook’s erection pops out above the ribbon trim. Darker pink than anything he’s wearing, already wet at the tip, and Zoro lets out a short growl, dropping his forehead against Sanji’s shoulder to get a good look. 

The cook squeaks - Zoro will definitely mention that later - and his hand stops moving on Zoro’s own cock, the other yanking at his hair. Zoro doesn’t really mind. It makes it easier to knock Sanji’s arm out of the way and brace their hips even closer until he can take them both in hand.

Sliding his own erection against Sanji’s, Zoro can’t quite decide which texture is better, the love-cook’s heated skin or the silk still covering most of his cock. The combination is amazing, and Zoro sets to stroking them in earnest as Sanji wraps both arms around his shoulders.

It can’t last long after that, and doesn’t. Sanji clings and moans and nearly crushes Zoro’s hips with his thighs, and Zoro can’t concentrate on anything beyond moving his hand. Almost embarrassingly soon they’re both panting into the stillness, and Zoro gathers the presence of mind to wipe their come off of Sanji’s stomach before it can drip onto his lingerie. 

Zoro isn’t concerned about his own underwear, wiping his hand off and feeling a bit smug that the cook didn’t notice. It’s the sort of thing Sanji would definitely yell at him for being disgusting about.

Sanji relaxes, slipping off his lap and giving Zoro a languid kiss. After their heart rates settle, Zoro ends the kiss and leans back to look into the cook’s blue eyes. 

“Tell me you have clean towels up here somewhere,” Sanji says with an exhausted grin.

Zoro does, and fetches one with compliant alacrity that even startles himself. Sanji sure looks surprised when he brings it over without teasing or complaining. 

To Zoro’s further surprise, Sanji doesn’t scramble to vanish after cleaning up. “I told Brook not to come up for his watch,” he yawns, stretching out on the bench. “Pervert said he’d take it from the deck if I left him a snack, so nobody’ll be up here tonight.”

Rolling his eye, Zoro rummages through one of the seat compartments. If the love-cook sleeps like that, he’ll regret it far too soon. Coming up with a rolled futon and a few crumpled blankets, he throws them to Sanji.

“You’re welcome,” Zoro tells him, taking care to whack the cook only lightly with the last blanket. He likes the idea of Sanji sleeping up here, and doesn’t want to drive him away in a huff.

“Smug doesn’t suit you,” Sanji retorts, wiggling around to lay out the futon while remaining as horizontal as possible.

“This all suits you,” Zoro blurts, waving at Sanji’s mussed hair, the flush still visible on his skin, the whole confection of lace and silk and bows at his hips.

Sanji blinks at him, a blush slowly rising in his cheeks. He opens his mouth, closes it; raises one hand to his face and finally collapses onto his back with a whimper. “You’re not allowed to talk any more.”

“I think that covered it,” Zoro says, grinning broadly. That embarrassed expression is great.

“I’m going to sleep for a while,” Sanji grumbles, flinging one of the blankets over himself. “Drink your sake.”

Zoro had completely forgotten about that, which says something. He retrieves the tray and sits a little ways from Sanji, watching the cook sleep. It’s not too creepy after what they did, right? When he’s done, he figures he should take a nap too, but it doesn’t feel right.

For once, Zoro can’t sleep so easily. He’s feeling wrung out emotionally, but at the same time practically vibrating with something like accomplishment. Relief, fulfillment; something like that. Whatever it is, he’s more inclined to get some training in than try to sleep through the fizzling excitement in his blood.

It’s so late it’s early, anyway, and by the time Zoro has done enough katas to relax, the sun is beginning to rise at the edge of the horizon. Taking a few deep breaths, he lets the first rays of real daylight wash through him.

Sunlight begins to flood through the windows, spilling across the floor, glinting off of Zoro’s weights piled against the wall. It catches in Sanji’s hair, where he’s still asleep on the bench, and all Zoro’s painstaking calm goes out the window.

Sanji has turned toward the window in his sleep, and the blanket is barely clinging to his hip. All Zoro can see is the back of his head and shoulders, but the sight is easily as erotic as panties and pretty dresses. The glint of sunlight in his messy hair, the way it’s glancing across his shoulders and throwing all the muscles in his back into sharp relief, is intoxicating. It’s an unguarded moment of just plain Sanji, and Zoro knows he’ll remember it forever.

“You’re beautiful,” Zoro says, as the thought crosses his mind. It’s too true not to say. The cook stirs; Zoro doesn’t have time to decide whether he’s glad Sanji is awake or not before soldiering on. “I think I’m in love with you, shit cook.”

“I’m pretty fond of you, too, marimo” Sanji responds, sleepily peering over his shoulder.

As much as Zoro wants to scoff at the casual, understated phrasing, it’s better than he really hoped. Between the two of them, that’s a passionate declaration. 

He didn’t really need a response. Sanji being here at all is an ardent revelation in and of itself. None of the clothes matter at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hmm! how do you write a sexual scene that doesn't feel like pulling teeth
> 
> Anyway, hope you all enjoyed how that played out :) Let me know what you thought~

**Author's Note:**

> this will probably round out at about 20k (because... that's how long my fics apparently are) in maybe a month or something; this seemed like a really obvious chapter break and the rest is pretty straightforward


End file.
